


Just the Tip

by lagertha



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Fluff, Gay Keith (Voltron), Humor, Hunk (Voltron) is so Pure, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Korean Keith (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) is a Dork, Lance Smokes Weed, M/M, Minor Hunk/Shay (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt is Savage, References to Drugs, Samoan Hunk (Voltron), They/Them for Pidge, blockbuster cashier au, for now, i need this subgenre to be a thing, i'll update when things get uhhh steamy, pizza boy AU, t is for language only, who even am i
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2018-10-19 07:52:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10635513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lagertha/pseuds/lagertha
Summary: Lance is a pizza boy, Keith works at a Blockbuster. Can I make it any more obvious?Keith doesn't tip. Lance is mad about it. They work it out.-“Uh,” Lance said, suddenly self-conscious about being sweaty, stoned, and sausage-scented. Fuck being a delivery boy. This was killing his game. “Keith?”Pidge paused the game. “Are you serious?”Hunk laughed.But Lance didn’t notice, because Keith, attention ripped from Mario Kart, was balking at him, and Keith’s weird, pretty eyes looked even better in normal lighting. Keith blinked, looked down at his hands, then back up at him. He looked, in a word, confused. Or, in another word, uncomfortable. “Uh, hey?”Oh, right. He wrote his number on garbage and threw it at him after he accidentally physically assaulted him, almost-sort of. Nice going, Lance. Smooth operator.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Took a break from my other fic to crank out a little Voltron content. Leaving this as a oneshot for now, but I really think I might add to it. And I'm dead serious, why is this pizza boy/blockbuster cashier not a trope?
> 
> This is set in Texas circa 2005, so None Pizza with Left Beef is anachronistic, but I just had to include it.
> 
> I'm also pretty sure I added stuff to the Blockbuster or made it very fancy. I'm foggy on the details of the one that was near my house and kind of blended it with an FYE.
> 
> Hope you liked it!
> 
> EDIT: obviously this is no longer a oneshot. I'm having a lot of fun writing this. Please comment!!

Lance hated his job.

He had never hated a job before- he’d been a waiter, a ticket salesman, a lifeguard, a camp counselor, and, briefly, a motel receptionist. Each had its ups and downs, but at the end of the day, he loved a satisfied customer. Making people smile, he always said in interviews, was his main goal of any occupation. It sounded corny, but it was true. A happy face would never get old.

He was so sure that nobody could frown at a pizza. He was so wrong.

“You call _this_ pepperoni? Huh?” A large man loomed over him, shaking the opened pizza box in his face. If he had pushed it out any further, it would have dropped on the pavement. “There’s hardly any on here!”

Lance definitely begged to differ. The grease reflected the porch light off each speckled red disc immaculately. There were at least twenty pieces on there, which, for a medium three-topping, was perfectly adequate. Everywhere else was covered with banana peppers (gross) and sausage.

“Sorry sir, I don’t make the pizza.”

“Yeah, maybe if you did, it would have been on time!”

“Actually, Solarsystem Slices has a great system that attaches a stopwatch to every order.” Lance flashed the small timer attached to his waistband with a strained smile. “We make sure that it’s 30 minutes or less, guaranteed. I was here 21 minutes and 14 seconds after your order was placed. We’d like to think we’re more efficient than NASA.” Lance gritted the last line through his teeth. _Stay in character._

The man grumbled something under his thick mustache and slammed the box closed, yelling for his wife to come and put it on the dinner table. The wife arrived with two screaming brats in tow, snatching the pizza from her husband and sending Lance a scathing glare he was certain he did not deserve.

“See you in hell!” The man shouted, slamming the door behind him.

White moths fluttered around the porch light, bare and buzzing. The man had given him eleven ninety-nine exactly. _Who the hell gives exact change?_ He thought, glaring at the four pennies as he stomped back to his car. That was unnecessarily wounding. _Not even a cent left over_. Tonight had been a huge bust. Normally he could scrape at least fifty bucks in tips with twelve or so deliveries, but he hadn’t even passed thirty in the past seven hours. Today sucked. His job sucked. He checked his watch. It was thirty minutes to midnight, and he had dropped off his last (goddamn, mother fucking) pizza. All he had to do was head back and clock out. Lance slumped in the car and rubbed his eyes. Thank God, it was almost over.

His phone buzzed. It was the work line. Shit. He pressed the accept button, and immediately resorted to begging. “Please no. Don’t. It’s quitting time. I want my bed.”

“Sorry, Lance,” Hunk said. To his credit, he really did sound sorry. “We got one or two late nighters and everyone else has already headed home.”

“Do you have to do this to me? I would rather die.”

There was some shuffling on the other line. Hunk was probably trying to multitask. “Yeah, yeah, if you wanna trade for the ovens, let me know.”

“I’d say hard pass, but at least your wages are consistent.”

More muffled sounds. Lance was familiar enough with his friend’s phone handling techniques to hazard that the receiver was stuck somewhere between his neck and his armpit. “Yeah, yeah, just get over here so we can both go home.”

Lance strapped on his seat belt and readjusted his rearview mirror. He definitely did not want to see his own sweaty forehead right now. “Whatever, see you in ten.”

* * *

 

Keith hated his job.

People somehow mixed up their home videos and the ones that were supposed to go in the box, or maybe they really would rather have _School of Rock_ on VCR instead of “Beach Vacation- Palm Springs, 2001.” He hated having to confront people about their obvious switches, but hated even more when the original tape had been fucked up enough that he couldn’t even tell if someone had made a bad forgery. Most of his day was spent rewinding tapes (nobody ever heeded “be kind, rewind!”), reshelving, and picking out gum from the horrendous gray-purple-green vomitesque carpeting. At first, he found consolation in the new releases that he played behind the desk, but this past week his boss had forced him to exclusively play _Finding Nemo_ on loop, and he was ready to lose his goddamn mind. Keith ran his hands through his hair, which always felt greasier in his blue polo. “I’m going to die here.” 

Pidge didn’t even look up from their DS. “You’ve been saying that every time Darla comes on screen.”

“Yeah, because her voice makes me want to punch through a wall.”

“You’re the one who picked Blockbuster over the gas station.”

Keith leaned back onto the semicircular checkout desk. “If I was working at the gas station, I would already be dead, because some creep would have killed me already.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Didn’t some guy get stabbed at the one across the street, like, a week ago?”

Pidge popped a large pink bubble between their teeth and cursed when Yoshi’s trademark blubbering sound erupted from their game. They paused and finally looked up. “Don’t drive, don’t care. Skeevy gas station rumors aren’t my problem yet.” The bell on the door tinkled, and Pidge dove back into position under the desk, turning their game on silent.

Keith straightened up and groaned internally. “Welcome to Blockbuster Video, can I help you make a selection?” He said, as politely as he could muster, which was not very.

The gaggle of unchaperoned twelve year olds ignored him and ran to the back of the store, rapidly opening, closing, and (incorrectly) reshelving the new videogame releases, giggling to themselves all the while. Keith didn’t trust them, but he was the only one in the store and couldn’t leave the front desk empty without locking the doors, at least according to the manual. He also did not want to move, so for once he didn’t really mind following the rules. He’d be cleaning up after the kids soon, anyway. Keith glanced down at Pidge, who had pulled out their phone. He felt a buzz in his own pocket and flipped his phone open to the new text message alert that took up the entire screen.

**Pidge Gunderson:**

 

**_I’m hungry._ **

 

Keith rolled his eyes and typed out a reply on the small keyboard.

 

**Keith Kogane:**

 

**_Ok?_ **

 

Pidge had already taken to stealing M&Ms from the stacks of candy below the register, which were always deducted from _his_ paycheck. 

 

**Pidge Gunderson:**

 

**_Take out?_ **

 

Keith glanced up. The kids were still talking among themselves, but had decided on a movie, apparently. Great. Hopefully they’d be out of here in a few minutes. 

 

**Keith Kogane:**

 

**_I’ve had 2 much chinese this week_ **

 

**Pidge Gunderson:**

 

**_Pizza?_ **

 

The children approached with their video selection. The box had a picture of a smiling, one eyed alien thing and what looked like a giant blue rug. He glanced at the title. _Monster’s Inc._ Keith hadn’t seen it. He looked back up at the kids. One was still giggling, while one kid, who looked to be the leader, elbowed him in the side and shushed him. Keith opened the box. 

“Something tells me Nicole Kidman wasn’t in this kid movie.” He waved the tape inside at the group. “You guys can’t rent _Eyes Wide Shut_ without an ID.”

There was a collective groan before the inevitable defeated shuffle to the door, bell tinkling again to announce the departure of the kids. One kicked the gumball machine on his way out. Keith flopped back in his moderately comfortable spinny chair behind the desk and propped his feet up. “Pizza sounds good to me.”

Pidge hopped back up to their favorite spot on the counter, short legs swinging over the end. “If I put the videos back where they belong, will you call in the order?”

Keith could hardly turn that down. Pidge had never volunteered to help him out at work before, even when he really could have used it. More often than not, they enjoyed his suffering in the way only true friends could. For once, he was grateful for their severe aversion to talking on the phone. “Deal.” They had ordered stuff a few times to the store when Keith was in charge of closing, but normally Pidge would just run to the Subway across the street and get them two large meatball subs with extra cheese(American, obviously). Despite being _very_ lactose intolerant, Keith would always suffer for cheese. “Where from?”

“Solar’s, and get garlic bread.”

Solarsystem Slices was a gimmicky space themed restaurant-arcade combo that probably should have gone under in about 1987, but it really did have good garlic bread. It was a local joint, so prices were higher than the chain places, but Keith knew that the spot occupied a special place in Pidge’s small, shrivelled heart for it’s gaudy sci-fi decor. “Alright, sure. Large, half and half with your usual?”

“You got it!” Pidge called from the back stacks. “Does _Seven_ count as horror or thriller?”

“Thriller,” Keith said, tossing the yellow pages onto the desk and flipping through to the R section for restaurants. “Did you want a drink?”

From somewhere around the romance section, he heard a deep sigh. “Nah, they don’t deliver their Space Goo Slushies. I’ll just steal a Coke from the front.”

“No, you won't.”

“Aw c’mon, this job would be soul sucking without me. You owe me.” A hand and the tip of a video box came into view near the merchandise section. “I think those kids left a copy of _Sixteen Candles_ in between some Star Wars t-shirts. Quit complaining and put the order in before they close the kitchen.”

Keith rolled his eyes and found the number in a brightly patterned red-and-blue square in the corner of the second page of pizza listings. He picked up the work phone, a chunky blue thing with a damaged cord that had probably been at the desk since the store opened over a decade ago, and dialed the number. After a few seconds on dial tone, a horrifically saccharine voice answered.

“Welcome to Solarsystem Slices, where our pizza is out of this world! What can I get for you today?”

“Um, yeah, can I get a large pizza for delivery? Half meat lovers, half anchovy, jalapeno, and green olive. And a side of garlic bread.”

“Can do! One large with half Meat Meteor, half anchovy, jalapeno, and green olive, and one order of our Galactic Garlic bread. That brings your total to $17.99.”

Keith rolled his eyes again. He hated the cheesy nicknames they had for just about every menu item. Everyone knew what meat lovers meant; they didn’t have to translate it into some marketing pun. “Yup.”

“Can I get a name for the order, please?”

“Keith. K-E-I-T-H.”

“Okay Cadet Keith, can I get an address for the delivery?”

Cadet Keith. Jesus. “Can you just drop it off to the Blockbuster on Main and Seventh? Across from the Texaco?”

“You got it! Will you be paying with cash or card?”

Keith looked over at Pidge, who was still darting through the stacks. At least he wasn’t matching up movies. “Cash.”

“Alrighty then, cadet, you should expect that delivery to be rocketed to your location in thirty minutes or less!”

“Okay, thanks.” Keith hung up before he could hear one more space joke. “Your gross half of the pizza is en route,” he called, raising his voice just a little.

The topping debate had been a sore topic for far too long in their relationship, though both reveled in reopening old wounds of pizza debates past. “I enhance the natural salt and spice of the pizza. You’re just trying to mask it with ground beef.”

“Oh, you are so wrong. There’s a reason Hamburger Helper exists. Bread, meat and cheese is the most perfect combination on earth.”

“First of all, the most perfect combination of foods is potato and literally anything else. Second, Hamburger Helper is what sad people eat, and you should never admit how regularly you eat it. Third and finally, don’t ever compare pizza to Hamburger Helper ever again, you absolute heathen.” 

Insulting his default meal of Hamburger Helper was a low blow and Pidge knew it. Few things were sacred in life: Hamburger Helper was definitely one of those things. “Whatever.” Keith opened his phone and started up a game of Tetris.”We’ll see if you’re done doing my job by the time the pizza guy shows up.”

“Do I get a Coke if I win?”

“Deal.”

* * *

“Are you kidding?” Lance said, skimming the order ticket before shoving the pizza in the jacket. “Some people don’t respect art.” 

Hunk shrugged two large, flour-covered shoulders. “I disagree. With some careful additions, the anchovy-jalapeno-olive combo could definitely work.”

“Whatever. You’re the arteest.” Lance squinted at the order ticket again. “Isn't that Pidge’s favorite combo?”

Hunk was already back in the ovens, prepping for closing. “I think so, now that you mention it. I thought they didn't eat meat though?”

“Probably some other weirdo with no tastebuds.” Lance zipped the pizza jacket closed. “After this, I am _so_ outta here.”

After a prolonged and sappy farewell to Hunk (“dude, you're my roommate, I'll see you in like an hour”) Lance headed out to his car and tossed the pizza in the passenger seat. It looked pretty sad with only one pizza in it when there was room for at least six in the jacket. One of the lights in his car topper had gone out, leaving only the “slices” part of the logo illuminated, along with a few stray background stars. He'd deal with that later. He turned on the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. The Blockbuster wasn't far, so Lance didn't bother to plug in the location on his GPS. The real question was who the hell was ordering a pizza to a Blockbuster. Probably some stoners who couldn't find their way home. He sighed. Probably wouldn't be getting a tip from this one, either.

Since he had the unparalleled luxury of hitting every single stoplight (nobody was even on the road! It was midnight on a Thursday, for crying out loud!) he messed with the radio. His default top hits station consistently went staticky in the middle of town, of all places, which tragically detracted from the vibe of Drop it Like It’s Hot. Lance was in deep shit if not even Snoop could boost his mood. He pulled into the dimly lit parking lot of the Blockbuster Video, saw there were no roaming vagabonds, and figured whoever was getting this pizza must be holed up inside. Lance sighed, slammed his car door with unnecessary force, and knocked on the glass door of the Blockbuster.

* * *

Keith jumped in his seat at the knock. The store, operations wise, had been closed for the past twenty minutes, and the sign said so. He’d vacuumed, cleaned the staff bathroom and realigned the candy, increasingly grateful that Pidge had taken over video duty with each passing task. At this point, he was pretty sure they’d long finished fixing the damage of the twelve year olds and had moved on to doing the work Keith had put off for most of the afternoon. They still weren't done, much to their chagrin and Keith's delight. “And, time. You're paying for your Coke.” 

“Not fair!” Pidge whined, deep in the Disney movie section. “This store is an atrocity!”

Keith swung open the door. “Hey.”

The pizza guy grinned a goofy grin that matched the vibe of his establishment. The uniform for Solar’s managed to be more embarrassing than his own: a blue cap with the logo of a rocket ship piloted by a stereotypical green alien, a blue polo, and wrinkled khakis. Okay, only slightly more embarrassing. They almost matched. “Hey there!” The guy said, with way more enthusiasm than necessary. “I've got your half Meat Meteor, half anchovy-jalapeno-green olive large pizza and Galactic Garlic bread. That’ll be $17.99-” he glanced at the order form, “Keith.” 

“Yeah, thanks,” Keith said. The guy held out his free hand and Keith dumped his change into it, taking the pizza and garlic bread. As the guy counted, Keith noticed his face fall as he started to count the change. “Sorry, man, I had to scrounge around for the last few nickels,” Keith said. It was true. Fifteen cents worth of his payment had come from behind the toilet.

“Nah, I mean, whatever. You work at Blockbuster.”

Whoa. Not cool. He may not like it, but there was an inherent sense of pride that came with work, however lame, and he was not going to let some pizza boy mock him. “And what's that supposed to mean?”

The pizza guy suddenly looked a lot less resigned and a lot more pissed off. “What, are you acting high and mighty because you don't smell like marinara all day? I'm saying you probably don't get paid shit either, chill out. But at least you don't actually rely on tips.”

 _Who the fuck did this guy think he was? Just take the fucking money and leave_. “Thanks for the guilt trip, I’ll savor your disappointment when I eat this Meat Lover’s.”

“Oh my god, it's Meat Meteo-”

Keith slammed the door with an unimpressive clink of the bells, and locked the door behind him.

Pidge walked out from behind the stacks. “What the hell was that about?”

“Pizza guy was mad he didn’t get a tip. Don’t worry about it.”

“I thought you had enough for a tip?”

Keith sat the pizza down on the desk and had to use serious willpower to keep himself from tearing into it. “Nah, but they’re delivering to a Blockbuster past midnight, what do you expect?”

“I mean, yeah, but still.”

Fuck it, Keith was hungry. He grabbed what appeared to be the biggest slice of _Meat Lover’s, damn it_ and shoved it in his mouth. “Whatever.”

“I hope you put the order in your name and not mine. I am not putting my relationship with Solar’s at risk because you’re a dick when you're hangry,” Pidge said, tearing off a piece of their half.

“Then maybe you should’ve offered to contribute for tip.”

“I figured the money that would have gone  to you paying for my Coke was going to the tip fund.”

“Liar,” Keith said, mouth stuffed with sausage. “You’re just trying to absolve yourself of guilt.”

“What was his name?” Pidge took a massive bite, “I know a few people who work there.”

“I didn’t look at the nametag,” Keith said, pulling another slice. He took another bite and searched the fridge by the front for a Vanilla Coke that he was definitely not going to share. When he returned to his spot behind the desk, Pidge was looking oddly pensive.

“Hope it wasn’t Hunk,” they said.

“Who?”

“Hunk?” Pidge sprayed a few crumbs from their mouth in Keith’s direction. Keith made a face and wiped off his shirt with the hand that wasn’t greasy. “I had a Statics project with him last year and hung out with him at his place a lot. I definitely mentioned him to you. He’s cool.” 

“This guy was definitely _not_ a hunk.”

Pidge sighed. “He’s not _a_ hunk, his name is Hunk.”

Keith glared. “Just eat your pizza.”

* * *

“You will NOT believe this,” Lance yelled the minute he stepped into his apartment, reeking of pepperoni.

Hunk sighed and pulled the blankets over his bed. “Can’t it wait until the morning?” he groaned, knowing full well that with Lance, nothing could wait when he had something to complain about.

“No,” Lance said, opening Hunk’s door and flopping himself into the unoccupied space on the right side of the bed. “The guy at the Blockbuster didn’t tip me at all. Do you know the humiliation of being paid in pennies? There was ten cents worth of pennies, Hunk. Ten pennies, all of them mocking me!”

Hunk didn’t even turn over. “Sorry dude.”

“Yeah, you should be. It’s depressing. A guy with a mullet who worked at a _Blockbuster_ thought he was better than me! His name was Keith! He was literally  the embodiment of what will happen to you if you turn away from the teachings of God. He turns you into the biggest loser alive.” Lance crossed himself. “Heavenly Father, protect me from all terrible hair decisions.” 

“Whoa, there are a lot of stereotypes associated with all of those things,” Hunk said, “But it’s almost 2am. You can dream about pulverizing Keith from Blockbuster into the pavement tonight and process your anger tomorrow.”

“I dunno. I'm really in the mood for a sleepover.” Lance said, sitting up and moving his eyebrows in that weird, unnatural way he always did when he wanted to have a Mountain Dew and beer fueled Mario Kart tournament.

“Dude, no, I have class tomorrow. Get out of my bed.”

“Make me.”

Hunk rolled over on top of Lance, his near-Pavlovian response to this scenario which played out at least twice a month.

“CHEATING! Foul! Use your wordngkg-” Lance choked out, suddenly smothered by Hunks back and hair and blankets.

“What was that? Can't hear you down there.”

Lance slapped Hunk’s chest blindly, his wordless signal for ‘uncle.’ Hunk rolled back over.

“Your shoulder was on my trachea!” The skinny boy hacked, rubbing his throat. “One of these days, you will kill me, and I already wrote in my will that you will be responsible for all funeral costs.”

“What costs? I'm going to put you in the dumpster.” Lance fake gasped at the insult, and Hunk fully shoved him off his bed.

“You haven't seen the last of me!” Lance said, fist raised and shaking, as he closed the door behind him.

“Unfortunately,” Hunk replied. He gathered his blankets back where they belonged and fell asleep before his friend could retaliate.

* * *

“I want pizza again.”

Two weeks had passed and fewer people were coming into the Blockbuster, in favor of catching actual blockbusters in theaters. An industrial sized fan near the front circulated air around the store but did nothing to reduce the actual temperature. It was mid-June and the air conditioning in the store decided to cop out just when it was starting to dramatically heat up. Summer sun in Texas was no joke. It was  still blazing at full strength past seven, and sunset wasn't until eight. Keith wiped his forearm across his forehead. Both were slick, and only rubbed wetly across each other. He stifled a gag. “Why? It's a million degrees out.”

“Okay, I mostly want a slushee and want  pizza only by association,” Pidge said. “But still.”

“I’m not ordering from Solar’s after that last douchebag pizza guy bitched at me about not getting a tip.”

Pidge sat up from their position on the counter, a damp spot outlining their body like crime scene chalk. “Are you still mad about that?”

Keith pulled on his polo to fan himself. “Kinda.”

“Wow. You're mad a guy was disappointed because you didn't tip him? I think you're playing the victim here.”

“I'm broke, Pidge. He's right, I work at Blockbuster. Why should he expect me to tip him?”

Pidge sighed, hopped off the counter, and opened the mini fridge, letting the cold air rush over their body. “Because the proletariat sticks together?”

“Okay, I get it. But it's not my fault his boss isn't paying him a livable wage.”

“No, it's capitalism's fault.” Pidge grabbed two waters and placed them at either side of their neck. “Don't blame the messenger, or the delivery boy. His job is literally being given the opportunity to beg for tips for less than five bucks an hour.”

Keith glared. “Stop talking, you're making me think you might be right.”

“I'm always right. Now order us a pizza before I start sticking Dibs in my armpits.”

* * *

Coran hung up the phone while Hunk and was shuffling around in the kitchen. They hadn't gotten any calls the whole time during Lance’s shift, so he had spent all of it cleaning up the restaurant, dealing out prizes to jackpot winners at the arcade, and goofing off with Hunk. It was a Wednesday, and despite the freedom of summer, which usually meant the place was crawling with kids, it was almost empty except for a few teens that were there only ironically.

“Good news all, business is picking up!” Coran said, accompanied by a dangerously genial swing of his arm. “Fire up the friars!”

“All anyone has ordered today have been onion rings, Coran. The friars are hot and ready,” Hunk said.

“Like somebody else I know.” Lance said, doing his weird eyebrow thing again. “Who’s got two thumbs and is hot and ready?”

Hunk rolled his eyes and looked back to his manager before Lance could finish his horrible joke. “What's the order?”

“Large pizza, half Meat Meteor and half anchovy-jalapeño-green olive, and a side of Galactic Garlic bread!” Coran shook his head. “Fella seemed bummed we couldn't send it with some of our famous Space Goo, but what can you do? I told him it's the surface of the sun outside and we keep our goo at Plutonian temperatures! It wouldn't last a second out there!”

“Where's the order for?” Lance asked, jumping up from his slumped position over the counter.

“The Blockbuster, of all places. I guess people love good food anywhere!” Coran swaggered away to “check in on the asteroid belt situation,” which meant he was definitely making sure that there weren't any kids making out in the ball pit.

Lance locked eyes with Hunk. Well, Lance stared at Hunk aggressively until he turned to his roommate.

“No.”

“Hunk, I need you to do this for me.”

“No. I do not compromise my art.”

“When is the last time I asked you to do something for me?”

“This morning, when you borrowed toothpaste because you ran out.”

Lance leaned over the counter again, placing his palms as far apart as he could, extending to his full wingspan. “That is me borrowing your stuff, _not_ asking you to do something for me.”

“That’s the same thing!” Hunk turned to retreat into the ovens, but Lance caught him by the back of his apron.

“No, it's not, and you know what I want.”

Hunk gave his friend a once over. He was serious. Serious enough that he would personally carry out his plan of attack if Hunk didn't contribute, which meant the outcome would be much, much worse. “Fine,” Hunk said, after thoughtful consideration.

“YES!” Lance yelled, pumping both fists in the air. “You won't regret it!”

Hunk shook his head. “No, you will. You're going to get a negative tip.”

Lance had stopped paying attention, and was headed for a victory lap through the Maze of Ursa Major.

* * *

“This seriously isn't fair,” Pidge said, wiping sweat on their pants. “This is not worth a Coke.”

“Then don't do it,” Keith said, flipping through his copy of _Dune_ at a rapid pace, occasionally using it to fan himself. The deal of the day was that if Pidge fixed the air conditioner, Keith would give them a Coke on him. It was a long shot, but Pidge was hot enough to agree. They had made little progress.

“I'm not an electrician.”

“Isn't programming basically the same thing?”

Pidge rolled their eyes and went back to tinkering in the vent. “Typical.”

“What? Seriously, what's the difference?”

“Programming is writing code, you dumbass. Electricians set up and fix wiring. And in this case, the system is not limited to the-”

“Too late, I stopped caring,” Keith said, slamming his book closed. The movie of the week, as dictated by his boss, was _Are We There Yet?_ with Ice Cube, and Keith was very much over it. He had put it on mute over an hour ago. “Wanna watch a movie?”

Pidge extracted themself from the vent enough to glare at their friend. “What am I gonna watch from in here?”

Keith shrugged and flipped through recent titles. “ _Alien vs Predator?_ ”

“You would.”

“You also would. You're the one who orders exclusively from the space themed pizza place.”

“Yeah, but you're actively reading _Dune_ , so who is the real space nerd?”

“Still you.”

The pizza guy couldn't get a second knock in before Pidge had scrambled out of the vent for the door, flinging it open with violent force and sending the bells crashing into each other. Keith didn't look up, engrossed in starting up _Alien vs Predator_.

“Wait, Lance!?”

“Pidge! What’s up with you, bud?”

Not the reaction Keith was expecting. He glanced over his shoulder to see the two of them fistbumping and Pidge letting the pizza guy ruffle up their sweaty hair. Pidge did not let most people do that.

The guy stood up, and Keith felt his stomach drop. Great. They were friends with the douchebag. At that moment, somehow sensing his eyes, he looked up right at him. Oh god. Keith whipped his head back towards the TV and went back to starting the movie.

“You're friends with _Blockbuster Keith_?” Lance asked, a little too loudly.

Pidge nearly choked.“Wait, were you the guy who delivered last time?”

Keith felt his ears burning, and prolonged pushing every button for as long as humanly possible.

“Yeah, I was. Pidge, what the hell? Did you not put in for tip?”

“Keith and I had an agreement and he didn't fulfill his end of the bargain.”

Keith turned and crossed his arms, pressed back against the TV and far away from the two who had suddenly ganged up on him. “No, we didn't!”

Pidge laughed and Lance smirked. Some friend Pidge was.

“Okay, you know, Pidge already guilted me to death. Don't rub it in, I was having a bad day,” Keith said, reaching for his wallet. “But I already decided to give you a $10 tip this time to make up for last time and so you wouldn't make a big deal again. Is that good enough for you?”

Lance’s face fell quickly. “Whoa, dude, its no biggie, I was having a bad day too and you don't have to try to-”

“No, come on man, just take it. This is your job, after all,” Keith said. Pidge was looking at him with a weird face, which only made him feel worse. “I feel bad, okay?”

Lance shoved the pizza and garlic bread into Pidges arms and held up his own. “Really, you don't owe me, and Pidge is a friend so…”

Keith leaned over the desk and smacked the money into Lance’s hand like a terrible high five. A couple of cents got caught in his fingerless gloves, and Keith undid the  velcro band to try to shake them out. Oh God, his hands were really sweaty, too. “Sorry, one sec-”

Keith got cut off by Pidge’s howling laughter, totally and completely unhinged.  They had pushed their glasses up onto their forehead and had started rubbing one eye aggressively, tear streaming down the other. Lance’s eyes had gone as big as dinner plates, and, relatively, his pupils were the size of peas. “What?” Keith asked, searching for some explanation between the two of them.

Pidge slowly turned the pizza around towards Keith, still laughing. Pidge’s half was how it should have been. Other than the gross toppings, it looked delicious.

Keith's half, the left side, lacked cheese and marinara sauce. All that was on it was a few loose chunks of meat. He looked at Lance, who looked like his soul had left his body. “I apologized to you,” Keith said, “and you gave me half of a none pizza with left beef.”

Pidge screamed with laughter again.

Keith was pissed. “That proves it! You’re the dick here! I can't believe you would mess up my order because I didn't give you a tip last time!”

Lance slapped the counter and smiled the smile of a dead man. “Well, places to go, people to see, pizzas to sell, uh, you know, deliver, you know, haha, bye Pidge!” Lance was out the door before Keith could hop over and strangle him.

“Wow,” Keith said, glaring down at his miserable half.

Pidge was finally coming down from the hysterics. “That is _so_ Lance.”

“I swear, if you ever make me order from there again, I'm requesting anyone else but that guy.”

“At least he left the tip?” Pidge pointed over to the part of the counter Lance had been, where two wrinkled fives lay abandoned.

“I guess,” Keith said, and took a slice of  the bread and meat anyway.

* * *

“I have another request.”

Coran had turned out to be right. Business had picked quickly in the evening, faster than Lance would have liked. He'd had so much to do after he left the Blockbuster that he hadn't even squeezed one bad joke to Hunk, not even a short zinger over the phone.

Hunk sighed. “I'm already working on your chef’s special, dude.”

“Yeah, um, can I get a Meat Meteor instead?”

Hunk raised an eyebrow. “Do you no longer trust my culinary intuition?” After their shifts, Hunk had always made them each a pizza (or calzone) out of whatever ingredients were left over. It was tradition. Lance never made requests.

“It's not for me,” Lance said. “If there's enough left over, definitely make me a chef’s special. But can I get that Meteor stat? I need you to kinda rush it.”

“Is this about the Blockbuster thing?” Hunk asked, flipping over a wad of dough and stretching it out. “I thought you said I wasn't going to regret that.”

“Why would you regret that?” Lance pulled up a chair to the pizza counter. “I now owe you two favors.”

“You have to pay for this one, y’know. Coran will lecture you otherwise.”

“Yeah, I’d rather pay the twelve bucks than listen to a gentle and well meaning rant about honesty.” It was almost closing time, and Coran had already left for the night, so Lance put his feet up on the counter.

“So what happened?” Hunk said.

“He apologized.”

“Mullet guy?”

“Yeah, dude, he was wearing these terrible fingerless gloves, and he wanted to give me a ten dollar tip this time to make up for last time.” Lance sighed and stretched his long arms behind his back. “And I gave him half of a none pizza.”

“At least it was the beef half?”

“Hunk, you beautiful man, if you love me  at all you will drop the topic and just make me a Meat Meteor.”

* * *

Pidge had, miraculously, managed to get the air conditioning back on, but left soon after their “body finally reached an acceptable point in their homeostatic temperature range again.” Keith watched the end of _Alien vs Predator_ by himself and then changed it to _iRobot_ , which he had to pause the two times families came into the store around ten. Keith was bored and his stomach was growling by the end of his shift. Evidently, cheese was really integral in the bread-meat-cheese combo for satisfaction. He may not end up with  any horrible stomach cramps, but pizza was very sad without it. It would have been improved with even a little marinara. Keith counted the money in the register and checked it to the rental logs, made sure the tapes were mostly in place, that merchandise was accounted for and the desk was presentable enough for the person who had the morning shift.

He turned off the lights with a weird feeling in his stomach. He'd taken one piece of Pidge’s half of the pizza, and he hadn't taken his lactase pills, so that could have been it, but he knew that it probably wasn't. Keith grabbed his keys and closed the door behind him, and was just starting to lock the front door when he jumped at a knock that heard a few feet away. He turned abruptly and nearly ran into the guy standing just behind him. “Jesus Christ, dude!”

Lance dug the toe of his sneaker into the pavement. “Uh, hey.”

“What now? Did you come to ask for those ten bucks back?” Keith turned back around and finished locking up. “Did you decide that you deserved the extra cash for fucking up my order?”

“Um, actually, I came to say sorry.” Lance held out the box in his hand. “We got kinda busy, so I'm sorry I didn't make it before closing. Didn't mean to scare you.”

Keith peeked over his shoulder and looked from the box back up to Lance. “Are you kidding?”

“No, I swear, scouts honor.” Lance raised three fingers with one hand. “Go ahead and look.”

Still skeptical, Keith took the box. It was warm. When he opened it, steam was practically pouring out. A large Meat _Meteor_ (okay, the name was kind of catchy), complete with ‘my bad’ spelled in pepperoni. Keith stared at it for a little bit too long before raising his eyes back up.

Lance was still grinding his shoes into the pavement. “It's free, by the way, in case you didn't get that.”

“What, was ‘sorry’ too generic?”

Lance met his eyes, face softly red and only half illuminated by the parking lot lights. He wasn't bad looking, Keith thought before he could stop himself.

“Uh, well, I wanted to make it clear the blame was mine.”

Keith couldn't stop his smile from spreading, either.

“So, we cool?” Lance asked. He took off his baseball cap and mussed his hair a bit. It looked as sticky and hot as Keith's own had been before Pidge had fixed the air conditioner. Lance’s hair curled just a little at the base of his neck, he noticed.

“Yeah, we’re cool.” Keith said.

Lance stuck out his right hand, but, apparently realizing that was his sweaty hair hand, switched it out for his left. “Alright, cool.”

“What, are you making this official?”

“Uh, yeah?” Lance said. “I take being cool very seriously.”

Keith let out a single loud “HA!” before taking Lance's hand into his own. “You're not cool, we’re cool.”

“I don't need you to tell me I'm cool, I _know_ I’m cool. I just needed to know that you're cool with me being cool so-”

“Yeah, okay, I got it.”

Lance pulled his hand back and straightened his hat again, smiling. “Guess I'll see you around then, Keith from Blockbuster.”

“Guess so,” Keith said. He rubbed his elbow. It was probably seventy degrees out, but he was starting to get goosebumps.

Lance was halfway back to his car when Keith called his name. Lance looked back, confused.

“Hey, uh, if you want to share, I don't know how I would strap the whole thing on my bike, so…”

“You want to split my apology pizza in the parking lot?”

“Um-”

Lance started laughing before Keith could defend himself. “Yeah, actually, I’m starving.”

Keith sat in the curb of the sidewalk, tearing the pizza evenly down the middle between the M and Y.

“That’s cool of you, dude,” Lance said, and took a seat next to him. “You're cool, I'm cool, we’re cool.”

“Oh my god, do you always talk like this?” Keith asked, handing him the slice with the better part of the Y.

“Mostly, yeah.” Lance did a really weird thing with his eyebrows, making them wave in a precisely executed motion while keeping one raised. “That's why I'm so cool.”

“I already regret sharing with you,” Keith said, taking his own slice.

“No,” Lance said, “you don't.”

Keith grunted in reply and looked the other way.

“So,” Lance asked, “How do you know Pidge?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took a break from my other fic to crank out a little Voltron content. Leaving this as a oneshot for now, but I really think I might add to it. And I'm dead serious, why is this pizza boy/blockbuster cashier not a trope?
> 
> This is set in Texas circa 2005, so None Pizza with Left Beef is anachronistic, but I just had to include it.
> 
> I'm also pretty sure I added stuff to the Blockbuster or made it very fancy. I'm foggy on the details of the one that was near my house and kind of blended it with an FYE.
> 
> Hope you liked it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As soon as Lance left, Pidge paused the game again. “Spill, Keith.”
> 
> Keith looked to Hunk, who only shrugged. “What?” He said.
> 
> Pidge wasn’t buying it. “Thigh? Dick?”

“Okay, run me through this one more time.”

“Again?” Keith said, rolling his eyes. “It was nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

Pidge sat up and rubbed at the spot between their brow and the bridge of their nose. “Keith. I need answers. I cannot believe that you, famously hardheaded, would go from hating Lance instantly to sharing a starlit dinner with him.”

Pidge’s prying questions were Keith’s fault. He had asked too many questions, Pidge said. But none of them had been anything but innocuous.They were normal, like how Pidge and Lance met, where Lance was from, all the things that Keith had heard firsthand two days ago when Lance told Keith himself. And somehow, Pidge gets the idea that Keith had some sort of interest in Lance. Keith, of course, had no interest of any kind in Lance, just happened to see him the other day.

“He made me an apology pizza, Pidge, what was I supposed to do, turn it down?”

Which of course led to Pidge asking about the nature of their meeting, and why, when pressed about it, Keith gave noncommittal answers, gazed off into the distance, and got a weird look on his face.

“No, under normal circumstances, if someone tried to apologize to you they’d get a fist in the gut.”

Keith scrolled through the desktop system’s recent rentals. Customers had checked out mostly rom-coms and action movies this week, which was normal for summer. Some people really had no taste. “Yeah- I don’t know. Am I that violent all the time?”

Pidge paused Mario Party and set down their DS, grabbing their phone from a velcroed pocket. “I’m texting Hunk.”

“Wait, his roommate? Don’t text him!”

“How did you know Hunk was his roommate?” Pidge ask, smirking and twirling their unopened phone in their hands.

“I dunno, it came up.”

“Okay, you know what? Oh my god-” Pidge stood up fully. “Lay this out for me one more time. Spare no detail, Blockbuster Keith.”

Keith rolled his eyes. Pidge wasn’t going to let him live that down. “Fine. And listen to me instead of interrupting this time. After you left, Lance came over with a pizza that spelled out ‘my bad’ in pepperoni, said he’d been a jerk and gave it to me. I offered to share it with him since I didn’t wanna bike home with it, and we sat on the pavement and ate it together. That’s all.”

Keith knew Pidge wouldn’t be satisfied with that, and they weren’t. Keith’s story was offensively consistent, suspiciously so. Hence why Pidge had continued their interrogation, “And then what? What did you talk about?”

Settling deeper into the chair, Keith gave a halfhearted shrug, feigning indifference. “I dunno, stuff. How work had been, best gas station food, whether aliens were real or not, why people had middle names…” Keith stopped fidgeting with his hands for a second before twiddling his thumbs again. “Stuff like that.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Keith,” Pidge said, shaking their head. “Keith, Keith, Keith.”

“What?”

“Were you going to ask me for Lance’s number?”

There it was, the satisfying pink that touched Keith’s cheeks on the rare occasion they ventured onto the sensitive topic of boys. “No! He already gave it to me, anyway. You’re reading way too much into this.” Keith couldn’t look up from his gloves. Lance had made fun of them. Keith had shot back about his shitty, rusty bike handlebars necessitating them, which led to Lance telling Keith about his hand masks, which led to an earful about skincare and Lance holding out his hand for Keith to feel. Keith reaching out and tentatively touching Lance’s smooth palm was the most embarrassing, intimate thing that they did that night, and Lance had just smiled and moved on. Keith’s pulse hadn’t stabilized until he went home.

“Oh my god, what did you say?”

“What are you talking about? What do you mean what did I say? He just went home, I guess.”

“Keith.” Pidge said, voice oozing with disdain. “He’s not your type.”

“That’s- true.” Keith was caught. “What’s your point?”

“Did you text him? Call him?”

“Uh, not yet.”

“ _KEITH._ Really?”

“What? I don’t have anything to say to him.”

“I’m texting Hunk, and we’re gonna go to their place after your shift,” Pidge continued, resolute. “Capisce?”

“Wait, no. Pidge! I said don’t text him!”

Pidge drafted and sent the fastest text message Keith had ever seen, and they flashed another devious smile to crush any doubt that Pidge hadn’t just ruined his life. “I asked if nine was good for him.” 

“I hate you so much,” Keith said, lying.

* * *

 

Lance picked up the call from Hunk as he turned into a driveway, parking with one hand and squishing his phone between his hat and his ear with the other. “What’s shakin’?”

“Hey, can Pidge come over tonight?”

“Pidge does what Pidge wants,” Lance said. This order was for three medium pepperonis, according to the ticket. He thumbed through the pizzas in the box to make sure the ones for this order were set on top so he wouldn’t have to scramble at the door. “When?”

“Nine. When do you get off?”

“I’m on the schedule until midnight, but they’ll probably cut me around ten since everyone else showed up late again.” All set for his delivery, Lance sat back in the seat for a second, content to finish the conversation before getting back to work. “Why? Can’t you handle Pidge by yourself?”

“I’m calling because you didn’t answer your texts, stupid. Pidge texted us both.”

“Well, yeah, I would hope so. It’s my house too.”

“They asked if they could bring a friend, is all.”

“Pidge has friends?” Lance inspected his fingernails. They were always pretty short, but they were starting to look kind of gnarly. He needed a trip back home so he could get a manicure with his sister.

“You know what? I don’t know why I bother. See ya when you get home.”

“Yeah, yeah. See ya when I get home.” Hanging up, Lance skimmed through his last text messages to corroborate Hunk’s statement. There was nothing interesting in them. Hunk and Pidge would probably just play Metal Gear Solid for a few hours. It was no big deal. He flipped his phone closed and let his head rest on the seat. Man, he was tired. It was only five, but he had been ready to clock out since he started work. Weekdays never paid well, and he was bored to tears driving around the suburbs and dropping off pizzas to late office meetings and exhausted parents. Just for second, he could sit in the car with the air conditioning on and his eyes closed.

It lasted for a blissful thirty seconds.

A soccer mom started beating on his window with a force that could rival his own mother’s brute strength. “Hello?”

Lance cranked down the window just slow enough to allow her fist to enter and make contact with his eye. He shouted and leaned forward to clutch his face, but she was shouting louder.

“Excuse me, are you on drugs? Can you please just take my card and get out? I’ve been waiting for these for the past fifteen minutes, and my kids have to be at the school in-”

“You just assaulted me!” Lance screamed. His mom raised him right, and he was not going to take that. “Lady, I’m gonna have to ask you to step away from the vehicle.”

“Look, I really need to get these and split-”

“Okay, you know- you know what?” Lance opened the door and tripped his way out, landing on one foot and catching his arm on the seat belt in the process. “Time out! No! I’m not gonna accept this! I was just about to walk inside and I wait for one second because I have to work my butt off all the time and I just I wanted to sit for a literal second in my car and you had to go and punch me in the face when I _just_ got to use the sample of my sister’s face scrub I stole!”

“The total is forty-eight?”

“Yes, but-“

The woman shoved a single fifty in his hand. “Just get out of my driveway!”

Lance hopped back in his car and screamed out of the driveway, the mom and what looked to be three children plowing backwards in front of him like a reverse car chase. They disappeared down the street and out of the neighborhood, leaving Lance two dollars and three pizzas richer, with only a mild possibility of being written up at work.

Whatever action he could take at this point wasn’t worth the effort. Sighing, he shoved the money in his bills bag, zipped it up, and put the car in park. Well, at least he got an extra two meals. He reached into the jacket in the passenger seat and pulled out two slices from the topmost box. Well, after that nightmare, he could just wait here until work called.

 

* * *

 

Keith had spent somewhere around fourteen minutes planning and executing what he wanted to wear. He liked his black t-shirts, so one of those, then a pair of once-black, now-grey pants that were worn and soft and traced him well. Good enough for a visit to a friend of a friend’s place (and maybe his roommate too, if he just so happened to show up.) However awkward the situation, Pidge wasn’t going to let him get out of it, and he didn’t really want to get out of it, anyway. It was only a few days since Lance had smiled at him and distracted him for the rest of the night, and he still wasn’t sure how to act around him- if he saw him. The first two times had been… bad. But the third time Lance had leaned back on the pavement and talked about his niece’s ballet lessons, the first time he got drunk in college…

He didn’t get to hear about his first kiss, but Keith was hoping to get there next time.

He spent maybe seven minutes planning and executing and seven minutes daydreaming.

Pidge was faster. They knocked on the door to Keith’s unit four times before Keith bothered to yell a half-hearted "yeah" in reply. At his front door Pidge stood, foot tapping and arms crossed. "All pretty?" they asked, their teasing plain.

Keith glared down at his friend and shut the door behind him as he stepped outside. “How did you get here so fast?” 

“Matt drove me.” Pidge said. “I would have asked you to pick me up, but you don’t have a car.”

“Ha, ha. Let’s just go already,” Keith replied, shutting the door behind him.

"I’m surprised you haven’t chickened out yet.”

"Chickened out of what?"

Pidge shrugged. "I dunno."

"I don't know what what you think you're going to accomplish."

It was eight thirty, and the sun had already started setting. It was a beautiful mix of orange and lavender with a few dark clouds looming for compositional balance. Keith had hesitated for a second about his  choice of just a t-shirt earlier, since the nights could cool unexpectedly, but once he was outside, he knew he was fine. It was quiet except for the distant rushing traffic and the sound of metal hitting concrete from the can Pidge was kicking. Much like their lack of response, their can-kicking was starting to get on his nerves.

"So how far is this guy's house again?" Keith asked. He was sure Pidge noticed that his tone was a little clipped.

“Far enough that I should have asked Matt to just drop us off there, if you’re gonna complain."

"Pidge."

"Cool your jets, I walk this way all the time. We'll be there in like 15 minutes. And you won't have helmet head."

"I don't get helmet head."

"Yes, you do," Pidge said. “You can thank me later.”

 

* * *

 

"Hey, guys!" Hunk said, his voice loud and warm and almost cracking. "Come on in!"

"Hey!” Pidge could only throw their arms halfway around the Hunk’s apron-covered frame, but they did so enthusiastically. “How’ve ya been?”

The house smelled amazing and the source was immediately apparent. It was a spread of two kinds of chip (plantain and tortilla), four dips-queso with chorizo, jicama (Keith had to ask what that was) topped guacamole, salsa and crema, and something else that Hunk had moved inside to unveil from a pan.

"Steak chilaquiles," Hunk said, gesturing between the other two boys and the steaming dish, "is pleased to make your acquaintance."

“Maybe you should start with your name before introducing your food,” Pidge said, already settling into the spot on the couch closest to the salsa. “Hunk, this is Keith. Keith, Hunk.”

Hunk sat down the pan on a trivet next to the rest of the food and took off his oven mitt, extending his bare hand out in front of him. “Nice to meet ya, Keith! Welcome to our house!”

Keith took Hunk’s hand with less hesitation than he expected from himself. Hunk was tall, with dark brown skin, light brown eyes that crinkled just a little bit when he smiled, and thick black eyebrows that jumped around with every new thought. “Hey. Good to meet you too.”

Hunk’s wide smile faded when his hand connected with leather instead of skin. “Wait wait wait- wait a sec. Are you Blockbuster Keith?”

Keith pulled hard on Hunk’s hand and the larger boy lurched forward, pupils shrinking.“That’s _not_ my name!” He saw the way Hunk’s elbow stiffened and dropped his hand immediately. “Uh, sorry. I just hate that.”

Pidge only shrugged, drizzling a section of chilaquiles in crema with a knowing look in Keith’s direction. Keith got the message loud and clear: not my problem. Some friend they were.

Thankfully, Hunk laughed it off. “Sorry bro. Won’t happen again.”

“You made that pizza for Keith, right?” Pidge asked, between mouthfuls and reaching for more. “The sorry pizza?”

“Yup, I’ll take full credit for that one. The good one. The plain beef one was not my idea and I do not want the blame for it. ”

“It wasn’t that bad. I mean, I ate it.” Keith said. Hey, he paid for it.

“Okay, but how was the real, actual pizza I made? The amount of pepperoni wasn’t equally balanced, keep in mind, but I want a general picture. Don’t worry, I’m good with criticism, as long as it’s constructive and not too critical.”

“It was, uh, really good,” Keith said, voice only a little stilted, which counted as a win for him. He meant it honestly, though. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Hunk was nice, Keith decided. Tall, dark, and handsome in appearance, but effervescent and light in personality. Exactly how Lance had described him. Keith had been surprised at the emphasis Lance had made on the word ‘handsome’ (in fairness, the word ‘smart’ had been thrown around a lot, too) but in person, he could see why. Broad shoulders, gleaming brown irises, large lips, a strong brow. Keith was probably about as opposite to Hunk as a guy could get. He shifted his weight again. _You’re getting off track._ “Thanks.”

Despite the staid compliment, Hunk’s face contorted into glee. “Really? I was testing out something new with the crust- not too thin at the bottom?”

“Solar’s pizza is already good, Hunk!” Pidge said from the couch, continuing to dig in. “If you keep tweaking the recipe, you may as well open up your own place.”

“Don’t mention my dreams this early in my college career. You make them sound like they’re still possible.”

Keith slipped around Hunk and onto the cushion next to Pidge before he had to actually answer any more questions. The pizza was good, yes, but it hadn’t been what caught his attention that last Wednesday evening.

Speaking of, where the hell was Lance?

Pidge and Hunk went back to catching up. The TV was already set up for Mario Kart, and Keith watched the bright cartoon cars whirl around in circles on the screen. How long had it been since he actually played a video game? He used to be pretty good back when he was always over at the Holt place, but that was on the N64. Keith asked his dad for a console once, but he said there wasn’t a place to hook it into their TV.

“This is Houston,” Pidge said. “Earth to Keith?”

He blinked and raised his eyebrows at a very expectant looking Hunk and Pidge. “Yeah?”

“Can I get you guys something to drink?” Hunk asked. He grabbed the now-empty salsa bowl (Pidge was really ripping into it) and pointed his thumb in the back to where Keith assumed the kitchen was. “Pidge?”

“Yeah, a Dr. Pepper, if you have one.”

“Keith?”

“Uh,” Keith said.

“Come to the kitchen. I’ll show you what we’ve got.”

Keith followed Hunk, passing a few doors. One was open to a sunny looking room. The bed was made but an unzipped backpack was spilled open all over it, ruining it’s otherwise well-maintained appearance. Posters of cars and pictures of a lot of people who looked like Hunk splattered all over the walls. Keith kept walking, but he planned on peeking in again on his way back to the living room.

Hunk was halfway inside of the fridge. “We got uh….. Let’s see… O.J., Sprite, milk, Coke, Dr. Pepper, a kombucha but that’s mine, and a variety pack of those colorful juice things that look like barrels. Those are Lance’s.” Hunk pulled a tupperware container off one of the shelves, balanced a Dr. Pepper on top, and stepped aside to let Keith look around the fridge. “The beer is Lance’s too, but you’re welcome to anything except my kombucha. You walked, right?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, grabbing one and turning the can over in his hand. The brand was recognizably cheap. _No taste_ , Keith thought, frowning. Oh well. Lance still owed him, anyway.  Hunk reminded him about the stupid half pizza that he _still_ paid for. He definitely should be mad about that. Or at least it would be an excuse for taking his stuff. “No car. I’m good to go.”

Hunk beamed. “Cool. So you down with Mario Kart or what?”

“I mean, I know how to play. I’m probably pretty rusty.” Keith said, cracking the tab on the beer and taking a deep swig immediately. He wiped his lips on his forearm. Hunk laughed.

“It doesn’t really matter. I don’t think either of us could beat Pidge.”

The moment was almost tranquil. Mario Kart was buzzing with repetitive, nostalgic tunes and Pidge clicked softly on the controller buttons. Hunk leaned on the fridge door, looking like he’d known Keith forever. It was nice. And of course, he was going to ruin it.

“Did Lance say anything else about me? Beyond, like, my hair?”

Long ago, Keith had realized that the connection between his mouth and frontal lobe had severed. His medulla oblongata reigned, and every nerve in his body screamed for action, which unfortunately put him in situations like this often, where he caught up with his mouth about four seconds after it said anything.

“What? Oh, no, don’t worry.” Hunk said. “He complains about everyone.”

“Yeah?” The word fumbled out, unconvinced. So Lance not only made fun of him, but he complained about him, too. Awesome. Keith took another sip.

“He did say something about waiting for you to text first,” Hunk said. “Why?”

It took all the focus in the world to keep Keith from spitting out Lance’s beer all over Lance’s fridge, and he managed to Keep his shock limited to a loud choking noise. Fortunately, Hunk looked absorbed in refilling the salsa bowl, so Keith quickly regained his composure and tried to breathe around the beer bubbles lodged in his nostrils as subtly as possible. “Just wondering.”

“Hunk!” Pidge yelled from the living room. “I already set you as Bowser. Keith, do you still want Donkey Kong?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s fine,” Keith said, trailing behind Hunk back to their spot and taking a place on the floor next to Pidge. It had been so long since he played, but Pidge still remembered his favorite character. Sometimes their big brain wasn’t always bad. They had a great memory.

But more importantly, Pidge was supposed to be helping him out and they were way more interested in video games. What the hell was Keith supposed to do? Lance had just scribbled his number on the back of an old receipt and threw it out of his car window towards Keith’s eye. He drove away before Keith could say thank you or give him his own number. There was no way he could have told Pidge, though, without Pidge insisting he call him right then. Okay, so Pidge couldn’t really help him unless he told them the embarrassing details, but the whole thing was embarrassing enough as is and he didn’t need it to get any worse. But Hunk said Lance wanted Keith to text him, or maybe not, or maybe he was kidding. Okay, Pidge got him to Lance’s house, which was a pretty big favor. But really, was showing up to his house out of the blue better than texting him? Or something? Especially since Hunk said he mentioned the texting thing. Fuck.  

No. Not really. Not at all. Fuck. _Good one, Keith._

The whole end of that night had felt abrupt. After they’d spent the better part of two hours laying on the sidewalk talking and bickering about nothing, pizza box between them, Keith wanted a soda. Lance had followed him inside. The fridge had been the only source of light in the store, aside from the thin slots between the window shades that let in the parking lot glow.

_“Don’t touch anything in here,” Keith said._

_The keys jingled against the glass door when he pushed it open. He’d already closed up, and it was a little eerie being back inside. He’d never had an issue being in the store alone late, but he felt much more aware of how isolated the place felt with another person, especially when that person was one impatient foot behind him, and Keith was very much aware of him. The buildings next door were all closed by now, and cars were passing by the intersection every twenty minutes or so, if he was being generous._

_“Anything?” Lance purred, waltzing over to the yellow check-out counter._

 

_“Yes.”_

 

_The taller, tanner boy leaned back and traced small circles on the scratched plastic surface in faux-seduction. “Does this bother you?”_

 

_Keith rolled his eyes and let the door close behind them. At least it wasn’t so eerie with an idiot. “I mean no touching the actual videos and stuff.”_

 

_Lance pushed his hand into a bucket of tootsie rolls on the counter. “What about this?”_

 

_He really was an idiot. Keith walked past him to the array of snacks, squatted down, and opened the mini fridge, hiding a smile. “Stop messing around,” Keith said, pawing around for a Coke he had saved for himself earlier._

_Then he felt Lance’s hands on his waist._

 

 _“What about_ this _?!” Lance said, shoving his dancing fingers up Keith’s shirt and directly into his sensitive armpits._

 

_Keith’s first reaction to tickling was to reciprocate with a brutal elbow into Lance’s ribs. Lance screamed, and grabbed Keith, who grabbed the top rack of sodas. Lance’s foot came down onto Keith’s shoelace, and when Keith lifted his foot too eagerly, his momentum shifted his weight to a place with no support. With a yelp, Keith hopped onto a soda can, slipped backward, and slammed into the ground ass first. Cans rolled across the floor, and Keith was grateful he had been spared hitting anything until something else bluntly knocked into his forehead and pushed him flat onto his back._

 

_His head hurt the most, his butt hurt the second most, and the place where his back hit a Squirt was a distant third. “Ow,” he hissed as the dull beating started to spread along the base of his skull. His forehead would probably bruise. Fuck, that one hurt._

 

_“Keith?”_

 

_Oh yeah. Keith almost forgot that he was still at the store. With Lance. The pizza guy. Great. That was embarrassing. “Yeah?” he groaned._

 

_He was then very aware of the weight on his shoulder and on its rapid shift off of him. Keith opened his eyes to see Lance’s, with eyes wide and pupils almost nonexistent. “Ohhhhh my god, Keith, buddy, stay with me, are you okay?”_

 

_What a drama queen.“Ow.” Keith said again, closing his eyes for another second. Damn, that hurt._

 

_“Sorry,” Lance said. “Shit, Keith-”_

 

_“I’m fine,” Keith said, and sat upwards abruptly, his knee making contact with-_

 

_“FUCK! Oh, owowowowow-”_

 

__-Lance’s crotch._ _

 

 

_He looked in the dark at Lance’s long limbs contracted awkwardly around the center of his body, seeming willing away his pain. “Ow, ow, ow.”_

 

_Keith would have felt bad if Lance hadn’t hit him first. He rubbed the back of his head and winced. It wasn’t as bad as he thought, but he would definitely be tender. All the cans that had fallen out of the fridge had already settled into their final destinations. He sighed and closed his eyes again. Well, this night had almost gone well. Of course he would panic the second a good-looking guy started getting a little handsy. Too bad. All that was left to do was to  clean up and go home. With exaggerated sluggishness and averted eyes, Keith grabbed the cans he could reach from where he sat and stood up to replace them._

 

_Lance apparently regained enough of his composure to move, because he was right behind Keith with the rest of them, poorly balanced in his long arms. He stacked them inside the fridge over Keith’s shoulder, and Keith jumped when Lance’s chest grazed his back._

 

_He cleared his throat. “Sorry,” Lance said, “shoulda waited til you were done.”_

 

_“Why don’t you start with apologizing for fracturing my skull?” Keith replied, with some bite intended, playfully as he actually meant it. It would be fine if he played it cool. “Or shoving your hands up my shirt?”_

 

_Lance’s body heat was suddenly absent from behind. Keith looked over his shoulder to see him with his hands up and accounted for, face showing obvious guilt. “Sorry!”_

 

_Keith laughed, which somehow had the effect of freezing all of Lance’s features perfectly in place. He looked consumed by fear, which Keith thought was a good change from his smug expression. “Yeah, well, it would’ve been a pretty slick move if you didn’t push me down so hard. Or let yourself get kneed in the dick.”_

 

_“Yeah, thanks for that- What?” Lance asked, confusion obvious. His eyebrows pushed together as his body relaxed, stepping forward to take Keith’s place in restocking the fridge. “What move?”_

 

_“Alone in a dark chain video store? Feeling me up? Falling on top of me?” Keith stepped back to let Lance put in his hoard of Sprite, but not far enough to be entirely out of the way, just to see him squirm. “You bought me dinner, we gazed at the stars…”_

 

_He was obviously kidding. It was a fucking Blockbuster, where he worked, not a romantic getaway. Lance went to tickle him (okay, weird for him, not weird for Lance, probably) and they fell. That’s all._

 

_Lance did get him dinner, though. And Keith was definitely doing a little stargazing. And Lance was cute._

 

_There wasn’t anything to misconstrue there._

 

_“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Keith, that wasn’t- Keith, I’m not that kind of guy!”_

 

_Keith blinked. What? “Wait, what do you mean?”_

 

_Okay, so Keith was interested in men. He never thought it was a big deal, but he had seen writing on high school bathrooms, seen who was avoided in locker rooms, knew why the one kid in his Calc 2 class ended up with a broken arm first semester. There were consequences. But It always hurt when even the suggestion of something non-heterosexual had to come with a big, flashing disclaimer to thoroughly remove implication. No, this is not for you. No, that is not a possibility for you. But he expected better of Lance. He seemed so laid back. He didn’t think he’d care about that stuff._

 

_“I wouldn’t- what the fuck, Keith?”_

 

_“Okay, sorry!” Keith yelled, tossing his arms into the air and moving a few generous feet back. “Whatever, no homo! Does that make you feel better?”_

 

_“Wait, what?”_

 

 _Keith rubbed his face._ Go away. Let’s pretend this never happened.

 

_“I’m-” Lance hesitated. “I’m not- I wasn’t, like, luring you in here, I promise, sorry, I’m a touchy guy! I wasn’t trying to-” He hesitated again. “take advantage of you.”_

 

_Oh._

 

_“Oh,” Keith said, his chest deflating. His head pulsed again. Ow. “That’s not what I meant.”_

 

_“I know, but you don’t really know me. I swear, I push a lot of peoples’ buttons, but boundaries are boundaries.”_

 

_“Calm down,” Keith said. “Besides, if I thought you were a creep, you’d have more to worry about than my elbow.”_

 

_“Not gonna ask,” Lance said._

 

_“My knife.” Keith said. “I carry a knife.”_

 

_Lance’s shoulders dropped and he smiled. “Not even surprised.”_

 

_Actually, maybe Keith liked the smile on him. He finally got his soda and followed Lance back outside._

 

“Keith!”

 

Keith snapped out of his memory to the Mario Kart screen. He had come in last, but that was what he expected. “What?”

Pidge was showing signs of barely contained exasperation. “Watch the road! You fell off, like, eight times!”

“Pidge, maybe you should worry about your real competition, which is me.” Hunk threw a little thumbs up to Keith over Pidge’s back and winked.

“Don’t take his side!” Pidge said. “You don’t know what I’ve done for him.”

“Like what?”

“Nothing!” Keith spat, louder than he needed to. Pidge glared back, and Keith tried to change his expression to something that communicated _sorry, thank you, I owe you my first born_. He exited out of the rankings screen and back to the main page. “What course do you guys wanna do next?”

 

* * *

 

“Hey, I’m home!” Lance called, nudging the door open with his shoulder.

Since he didn’t drive Hunk back home with him from work today, Lance had made two detours: the first for a slushee (cherry and blue raspberry, from a 7/11) and the second for weed (sativa or a hybrid or something, from a guy named Lorenzo.) He wasn’t much later than he said he would be, since he knew Hunk would have dinner ready, but he didn’t park the car in their driveway until a comfortable nine-thirty. And then he rolled and smoked a quick joint (poorly wrapped by his own admission- he broke his pipe in the shower last week) in his car. So by the time he actually walked into the house at ten, high and carrying the one remaining pizza of the three he had earlier, he’d fully forgotten about Pidge coming over. Or Pidge’s friend coming over.

He didn’t even consider the possibility Pidge’s friend was Keith.

Blockbuster Keith, who never texted him.

They were in the middle of a lap on Mario Kart, it looked like. Keith was hunched over, biting his tongue in frustration, and smashing buttons on the controller with a passion that Lance didn’t expect. He didn’t even look up.

Pidge was an absolute fuck.

“Uh,” Lance said, suddenly self conscious about being sweaty, stoned, and sausage-scented. Fuck being a delivery boy. This was killing his game. “Keith?”

Pidge paused the game. “Are you serious?”

Hunk laughed.

But Lance didn’t notice, because Keith, attention ripped from Mario Kart, was balking at him, and Keith’s weird, pretty eyes looked even better in normal lighting. Keith blinked, looked down at his hands, then back up at him. He looked, in a word, confused. Or, in another word, uncomfortable. “Uh, hey?”

Oh, right. He wrote his number on garbage and threw it at him after he accidentally physically assaulted him, almost-sort of. _Nice going, Lance._ _Smooth operator_.

“Dude!” Pidge shook their controller. “Are you done? We’re in the middle of something!”

“Oh, hey Pidge.” Lance said. Pidge stuck their tongue out at him. “Hunk, my bromate, I’ve returned with tomorrow’s breakfast.” He rolled his hand in a flourish towards the pizza with a strained smile. _Please don’t notice I am so high right now. Please pretend not to notice I am super high._

“I already made tomorrow’s breakfast,” Hunk said. He was smiling, and doing his best to bite back more laughter. Thank god for Hunk. He did not deserve him. “Chilaquiles are actually a breakfast food. Which you would know, if you ate anything other than leftovers.”

“Bromate?”

Lance glanced down at Keith. His brow was furrowed just a little, but it was more confused than mad. Oh man, why was he looking at him like that? He took the bait anyway. “Yeah, a bromate. Like, a combination of bro and roommate.”

“Oh,” Keith said.

Hunk cleared his throat. “So are you joining in on the game or what?"

“Lemme shower first,” Lance said, too quickly. _So I don’t smell like weed and pizza._ Because he couldn’t resist, he looked at Keith again, and, dammit, Keith wasn’t looking at him, but at the T.V. screen, where Pidge was flipping through the other courses. He was definitely ignoring him. This was gonna be a bad night.

“I’ll save you a spot on the couch,” Hunk said, snapping Lance out of his very small mental detour.

“Oh, yeah, thanks. You’re the best.”

Lance hopped over the controller wires with unnecessary flair, power walked to his room, and slammed the door behind him, throwing the pizza and his backpack on his bed. _Shit, shit, shit._ He ripped off his shirt and his pants, tossing them wherever in his room. “Towel, shit, where’s my towel?” He mumbled. Oh, right, he was supposed to do laundry today. Whoops. Well, one day reusing a towel wouldn’t be _so_ bad. As he walked to grab the cloth hanging off his laundry hamper, he stopped en route to examine himself in the mirror.

His abs from his years of swim and soccer had long faded, and his constant exposure to grease was starting to make him break out. He squinted at a few red bumps, one forming on the edge of his hairline, another on the crease of his nose, one under his chin. Ugh, why did all of his lifestyle choices of the past few months want to catch up to him _today_? Of course he always was nitpicky about his appearance, but come on, couldn’t he get well-defined abs again just for the five second walk from his room to the shower?

Pidge just _had_ to invite Keith, who didn’t call him, text him, voicemail, nothing! How was he supposed to be suave when he wouldn’t give him a chance? To be fair, pretending they’ve never met spared Lance the embarrassment of getting turned down, but still! At least he could have never seen him again, but _noooo_ , he had to pretend to be cordial and explain his bad jokes to Keith, who wouldn’t know any better, because Keith obviously didn’t get that Lance was trying to flirt with him.

Or he did. Oh yeah, he did get it, and already made fun of him for it. Midway through eating his apology pizza, Lance realized that Keith only got more beautiful the longer he looked at him. And the more he talked, the more Lance discovered that Keith was way, way cooler than he thought. Keith liked sci-fi and classic horror, physics and aerospace engineering, and nature. He would smile sometimes at Lance’s jokes, but always smirked at his own. He was building a motorcycle with his brother, and it was turning out well. He wanted to paint it red. 

Lance poked a finger into his relaxing abdomen, frowning at the indent. He really regretted running his hands all over Keith. Body-wise, he was way out of Lance’s league, from what he felt of it. Keith’s arms, he had noticed before, were a little bulky, but he hadn’t expected his core to be as firm to the touch as it was. Hell, face-wise too, Keith was just... His nose did that thing where his bridge was flat, but tipped up at the end. Plus, those brown-purple eyes. Out of his league. But some part of him had hoped that Keith was just another normal guy at a terrible summer job. He did have the mullet and hideous fingerless gloves, after all. If Keith beat him at Mario Kart, he was going to blow a fuse.

He emerged from his room with his towel wrapped around his waist and a grin that had something to prove. At the entrance to the hallway, he paused and cleared his throat. Nobody looked up. He tried again. “Ah-hem!”

“What’s up Lance?” Hunk said, still focused on the game. He had a funny way of sticking his tongue out when he was invested. “Pidge is trying to beat your time on Rainbow Road.”

“Well, I wanted to let you know I was planning on taking a hot, relaxing shower-”

“We already got that.” Hunk said.

“Open invite.” Lance gestured to the bare chest he had just been critiquing. “All this, up for grabs.”

“Ugh.”

“Pidge, you know offer does NOT extend to you, and your input isn’t necessary.”

Lance looked to Keith. He glanced over back at him for only a second, expression unreadable. Unmistakably, Lance saw Keith’s eyes flicker over him. He went back to the game, still with the poker face. Lame.

“Remember when you forced me to stand in the shower with you to see if we would both fit that one time?” Hunk said. “Thanks but no thanks.”

“Keith?” Lance cooed. “You’ve already had your thigh on my dick once. Wanna try again and see where it goes?”

Keith’s eyes went wide.

Pidge paused the game. “Excuse me, what?”

Keith unpaused the game, glaring intensely, and resumed his button smashing. Double lame. “I’ll pass.”

“Go take your shower, Lance.” Hunk paused the game. “I know a distraction tactic when I see one.”

Pidge kicked Keith. Keith glared up at Pidge. Something was communicated between them. Pidge turned a glare at Lance, who suddenly felt much more half-naked than he already was. “Distract me all you want. I’m going to beat your high score, and I’m playing as a guest just so my tag can be ‘Lance sucks.’”

“I’ll believe it when you beat me,” he said, and pointed a finger at his small, rude companion. “And the rest of you are missing out!”

Lance went to the shower without noticing Keith’s horrified blush.

 

* * *

 

As soon as Lance left, Pidge paused the game again. “Spill, Keith.”

Keith looked to Hunk, who only shrugged. “What?” He said. 

Pidge wasn’t buying it. “Thigh? Dick?”

“I accidentally hit him.”

“How did you accidentally hit his dick with your thigh?” Pidge said, loud enough that Keith was certain Lance heard. Oh, god. Pidge wasn’t gonna let this go. Fucking Lance, fucking _Lance_ , fuck-

“I mean, he was sitting up and so was I and my leg went up and my knee kinda hit him,” Keith said. He shrugged, as it that would help his case.  “It wasn’t actually my thigh." 

“Bumping and grinding?”

“Okay, Pidge, you’re like,  twelve, so you’re not allowed to talk about anything even suggestive in front of me,” Hunk said. “But was this the time Lance said he tried to tickle you and you punched him?”

“What?” Pidge said. “That is _so_ much better than what I was expecting.”

“I didn’t punch him!”

“Then what did you do?”

“When he, uh,” he struggled to pick his words, “came at me, he was behind me, so I elbowed him.”

“Thanks for the clarification,” Pidge said.  “So when did his dick get involved?” 

“He fell on me. Then I hit him when I was getting up.”

Hunk ran a hand over his face. “Oh, Lance. And that was the end of that.” 

“Yeah, we left after that. Can we stop talking about this?”

“And then he threw his number at you.”

“Wait, what?” Pidge said. “This is only getting better. Worse for your date maybe, but-”

“Not a date!” Keith snapped. “Can we unpause the round, please?”

“Yeah, Pidge, Lance just threw his number at him. Out the window of his car. While he was driving away,” Hunk said. He grabbed a few nachos and unpaused the game. “Good stuff,” he said through bites. “Definitely not in his top ten most embarrassing attempts to ask someone out.”

Pidge scoffed. “Pretty sure it worked.”

“No way.”

“No!” Keith said. Donkey Kong veered off the course, and Keith watched as Yoshi crossed the finish line and his signature cackle came from Pidge’s quarter of the screen. “I haven’t talked to him since!”

“Yeah, hence why I mentioned it earlier. He was kinda bummed about it.” Hunk said.

“Wait.” It was Keith who paused the game this time, to look over at Hunk, incredulous. Hunk’s pupils shrank, seeming to realize what he had suggested. “He was flirting with me?”

“Yeah Hunk, was Lance flirting with him?” Pidge said, definitely loud enough for Lance to hear from the shower, again. Or hopefully not. Oh, god. Oh god.

“Um,” Hunk said. “I dunno, you’ll, uh, have to ask him. Can I get anyone anything?”

“Some more chips and salsa, please. And grab that pizza.” Pidge said.

Keith downed the rest of his can and wiped his mouth on his forearm. “Another beer?”

“Sure, no prob,” Hunk said, grabbing the salsa bowl and Keith’s empty can. His mouth showed teeth, but it was not pulled up at either end enough to be a full smile. Keith decided not to point it out. He mumbled a thanks as Hunk ran away to the kitchen.

“Keith, he’s flirting with you,” Pidge said.

“Hunk?”

Pidge rolled their eyes. “Hunk has a girlfriend, you idiot. Get your head in the game. Lance has _been_ flirting with you. He got you pizza, you kinda touched his dick, he gave you his number, you’re at his house, he asked you to shower with him, boom. I don’t see what you’re not getting.”

Keith almost unpaused the game, but remembered Hunk was gone, and he wouldn’t let Bowser careen off course. Hunk needed to come back. He wanted that beer, and to not talk about this topic anymore. “I didn’t touch his dick. Please do not bring this up in front of him.”

“Lance is the one bringing it up, because he’s flirting with you.”

He’d seen guys like Lance a million times. He was just a dude like the college guys that came into the store that stood a little too close to their friends. Keith had gotten good at reading from afar what guys, straight guys, considered within normal. “Trust me, Pidge. I can pick up a signal.”

Pidge rolled their eyes. “Your receiver is broken. And I’m pretty sure you’re doing a bad job of signaling back.”

Keith’s eyebrows jumped, then flattened, then knitted. He could not be the problem. He wasn’t trying to jump him or anything. But he did seize the first opportunity to go to his house, hoping to see him there. So what? He was hot. Seeing Lance half-naked was a bad idea, but not entirely his fault. Actually, Pidge was right, he had kind of volunteered his body for viewing, earlier. Was that flirting? Keith had put the piece of paper with Lance’s number in his wallet in with his cash. He’d seen it a handful of times that week, and every time it made him more eager to close his wallet shut. “I don’t know.”

“You suck at this. Just, like, compliment him or something. He’ll love that.”

There was a quick, wet sound of feet slapping against the floor. When Keith leaned over to the hallway, there was only a trail of water and footprints. Keith scrunched his nose together.

Hunk came back out, to Keith’s immense relief, with two beers in one hand. He set down the salsa bowl with the other hand and dropped the chip bag nestled between his elbow and his shoulder on the table. Keith waited patiently as Hunk approached and finally presented him with one of the two cans. With relish, Keith took his beer.  “Who’s the second one for?”

“Me!” Hunk said. “I figure I may as well get in on this.”

Lance padded in, large feet slapping the cheap floor like a bugle for his arrival. He was still damp, and his hair stuck half on his face and half in the air. It was probably roughly towel-dried. Gray sweatpants draped around his long legs, clinging to some spots and shifting freely in others. His body was a little flushed from the shower. Keith’s eyes widened again.

“Who has been taking my beers?” Lance said, one arm above his head, the other holding a can of the liquid of issue.

“Keith,” Hunk said, taking a sip of his (Lance’s?) beer. So much for Hunk being his new best friend.

“Keith?!” Lance flopped in the only available space on the couch, wedged between the arm and a half-cushion of free real estate. Pidge had shifted to both of their legs on the couch, while Hunk held his arms close for his smaller friends. Lance crossed his legs and gestured with his beer-holding hand, away from Hunk’s shrinking personal space. He used that arm to point. “Stay out of my stuff!”

“You owe me,” Keith said, matter-of-factly. He unpaused the game, and Pidge, ever prepared, launched a shell at Bowser before Hunk could grab his controller.

“Hey!” Hunk yelped. “Cheating!”

“Ya snooze, ya lose,” Pidge said.

“Wait, Keith, are you Donkey Kong?”

“Yes,” Keith said, keeping his eyes on the game. Lance needed to stop talking to him.

“What?! That’s my character!” Lance said. His voice always got louder at the end of his sentences. “Who am I going to play?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Keith said. He watched as Yoshi crossed the finish line, Bowser close behind, and Donkey Kong in not-quite-distant third.

“I’ll put in the fourth controller.” Hunk stood up to stretch his limbs and move away from his two dearest goblins.

Pidge immediately stuck their feet in Lance’s face. “Smell ‘em, loser.”

“Hey!” Lance grabbed their legs and pushed them off, “Quit it! I hate that!”

“No!” Pidge yelled.

Lance swung his legs up from the floor and pushed his feet into Pidge’s glasses. They let out a startled wail. “Hahaha!!! Sike!”

“Guys!” Hunk said, standing. “Lance, take your controller before Pidge breaks your nose.”

Lance glared at Pidge and moved his feet back on the floor. Pidge stood, announcing they had to go clean their glasses to get the “floor and foot” smell off. “Don’t take my spot,” they said to Hunk as they ran to the kitchen.

“This couch is too small,” Lance sighed.

“Then sit on the floor,” Hunk nodded towards Keith. Keith frowned up from his floor spot.

“Not with him.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Lemme see….” Lance stuck out his thumb. “First, you’re mean to me,” right index finger, “then, you take my stuff,” middle finger, “third and finally, you’ve been making weird faces at me since I stepped in here. No go.”

“Lance!” Pidge yelled from the kitchen. “Sit on the floor!”

“This is my house! You are a guest!”

“Fine!” Lance stood abruptly and ran down the hallway. Keith and Hunk exchanged a look, and he came back with three more beers in the crook his arm that wasn’t carrying his other beer. “If I have to sit on the floor, we’re shotgunning these.”

Pidge followed behind him, displeasure plain. “I don’t see how those two things are related.”

“Shut up, Pidge. Boys, finish your beers!”

Keith’s was still full. He looked at Hunk, who was wearing the same expression. “Lance,” Hunk said, “maybe that’s-”

“Up, up up up. No, if I can’t enjoy my own furniture, and you’re taking my stuff anyway- _Keith_ -” Lance said, narrowing his thin eyebrows, “we’re going to have some fun, Lance-style."

If there was a god, he was dead.

“You just opened yours,” Hunk said. “Don’t you want to wait-”

Lance, of course, chugged his. He dropped the empty can on the floor, raising his arms in victory. “Excuse me, what? You’re talking to the man, Hunk.”

Hunk sighed, made some noise of resigned acceptance, and started chugging.

“Keith,” Lance said. “Come on. Down it.”

“Can’t I just shotgun that beer than come back to this one?” Keith said. Lance frowned.

“I mean, yeah.” He said. The thought clearly hadn’t occurred to him. “But why would you do that?”

Keith finished his beer before Hunk did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to write a one shot
> 
> please take this i'm apparently still writing more bc I live in a dark world
> 
> this scene is ongoing i just had to break it into more than one chapter because it keeps going hoo boy


	3. Chapter 3

Lance stood on the sidewalk outside his house, flanked by his best friend and hot, sexy Keith who was looking at him with a mix of curiosity and distaste that was almost endearing. He handed a beer to Hunk and held out another to the hot, sexy Keith in question. His arms were crossed. “Are you in or not?”

Keith looked the can.

“Well?”

Keith grabbed it, but the look he gave was more than mildly threatening. Hot.

“What?” Lance said.

Hunk was already working on stabbing open his can behind him. Lance pulled out his key, flipped the can around, and stabbed the bottom. Keith watched the both of them for a moment before leaning over and pulling something from the upper part of his high-top shoes.

“Oh my god,” Lance said, “That’s your knife, isn’t it?”

The blade was short, and, to Lance’s horror, unsheathed, wrapped only in what was probably a piece of rag. How the hell did he fit that in his shoe? “What gave it away?” Keith asked. He pulled off the rag and put it in the same hand as the hilt. “Was it the shape, or did the sharp metal tip you off?” He smirked the way he did every time he had a comeback. Lance’s stomach flipped.

He almost felt bad for Keith. Almost.

“Ha, ha,” said Lance. He whittled the key around until the hole was a little bit bigger. “Couldn’t just use a key like the rest of us.”

Lance smiled as he watched Keith aim his knife, and smiled wider when he pulled back his arm slightly to rev up some force for the blow. “Yeah, well, unlike you-”

The knife made contact, and beer went everywhere.

This should have been awesome. Keith, if he wore a color palette that included anything other than dark, would have had his shirt soaked through, and Lance would have had a brief chance to admire the view before he died. Too bad Keith wore black and was more than willing to aim his knife, and his rapidly emptying beer, in his direction. “Hey!” He swatted away the surprisingly strong stream of beer away from his face. “Come on! Take a joke!”

“YOU-”

Holy shit, he had a good arm. Yeah, okay, he expected that. But the fist on his face was new. Wow, his arm was good. And his aim. Lance didn’t even notice when he fell on his ass, or when he wiped the blood from his face.

“DUDE!” Hunk screamed, far too high pitched. Mentally, Lance adjusted his memory to make Hunk’s scream much deeper and manlier. It’s what he would want. _Hunk, you’re welcome._ “ARE YOU OKAY?!”

Lance stood, then fell. He was a little dizzy, but otherwise fine. “What? Do I look okay?”

He felt a yank at his collar and smiled when the black haired boy snarled in his face. The knife was way too close, but Keith was pretty close too. It evened out. “Hey,” he said.

“YOU-” The snarl fell. “Oh, shit-”

“Wait, am I bleeding?” He was definitely bleeding. He could feel it now. “Do I look badass?”

Keith dropped him.

Hunk sighed. “Lance gets drunk after half a beer. I should have warned you he gets pranky, but decking him in the face is not an acceptable reaction.”

“HUNK!” Lance only half sat up this time, a safety measure after his past few . “I am more than not drunk.” But he was bleeding. Oh shit, he was bleeding. “Wait, time out. I need a band-aid or something.” Hunk helped him up. Thank god. Keith, sexy Keith, was still standing there, frowning, like the stupid dumbass he was. Keith really just sliced his face open. Wow. “Did you cut me with that beer can, or the knife?”

“Uh.” Keith muttered something, but he couldn’t make it out. It didn’t really matter what he said, because Lance smiled and quit listening when he noticed Keith’s shirt actually was a darker black than usual in the chest and abdominal area. Plan sort of accomplished.

This translated from his brain to his mouth as: “How’s the shirt? You wet or what?”

Hunk sighed again and bent to help him up again.

Lance knew he should have been on the receiving end of a snide comment for that, but Keith felt too bad about slicing his face open to say anything. “Bad phrasing. Wanna borrow a shirt?”

“Oh my god.” Hunk, his angel, was bringing him back inside. Keith opened the door for them. Lance was pretty sure he managed to wink on his way up the steps.

Pidge was playing a round by themselves against some CPUs. Offensive, but with the number of interruptions they were having, not surprising.

“Pidge!” Lance shouted. He could never remember how to use his indoor voice after his second beer. “Keith just cut my face open!”

They definitely didn’t believe him at first, and it was only after a triple take that they paused the game. “Keith, seriously?” Pidge sighed.

“It was an accident!”

Inside, Lance realized that he wasn’t the only one suffering from blood loss in the facial region. Keith was really pale. Like, really pale. A shade shy of about-to-vomit wasn’t really his color. His eyes shined and darted all over Lance like they’d missed a life-threatening wound he had inadvertently caused. Almost like he was checking him out. Nice. Kinda sucked that it was only because he felt bad. Well, he only felt bad because Lance was a little bit (pathetically) crossed. Keith would have let him rot on the ground if he didn’t get to pull the poor, vulnerable drunk card. But hey, he was at least looking in his direction!  “You good bro?” Lance said, kicking at Keith’s shin lightly.

“Yeah,” He gave Lance one more once over, then decided his own sneakers were a more appealing sight. If Keith was weirdly into feet, this was not going to work out. _Look at me! Look at me instead!_  “Sorry about your face.”

“Not the first time he’s heard that,” Pidge said from the couch. Lance glared at them, and they only shrugged. The damage to Lance’s face was within normal range of male nonsense and did not warrant action on their part.

Lance gently pushed Hunk off of him with a few effusive thank yous and headed towards the bathroom, ignoring Pidge’s well-aimed teasing. Keith followed. “No biggie,” Lance said, sparing a couple of glances at Keith behind him. “This one time, I fell off my surfboard and it hit me in my jaw and my left eye. I looked like hell. I told everyone at school I was in a fight-y’know, shoulda seen the other guy--but then my brother lied and said that my little cousin CeCe did it, and when I tried to tell the truth about what happened, nobody believed me and then everyone thought I got beat up by a seven-year-old.” Lance flicked on the light. “This is way better because I can almost pass this off as a bar fight.”

Keith leaned in the doorway of the bathroom while Lance washed his face. Where’d Hunk go? At least Keith felt guilty enough to stay with him in his time of need. “Oh, shit. My towel is in my room.” Lance pushed past Keith, eyes closed and face dripping, and walked to his room, grabbed his towel, and went back to the bathroom. Washing his face had cleared his mind significantly. At least now he felt confident in keeping his stride in the right direction. Keith was still waiting by the doorway. His color was looking a little bit better, but his dark, thick brows were on the verge of mashing together.

“How’s it look?” Lance asked. “Think it’ll bruise?”

Keith stepped into the bathroom next to him, arms crossed tight over his chest. Just where his gloves started, Lance noted his white knuckles and vice-like grip on his forearm. He was embarrassed. Cute. Keith looked at Lance’s reflection in the mirror with an expression that could generously be called pouting.

The cut was shallow but long. The thin red line followed his right cheekbone just under his eye and disappeared somewhere in the hair behind his ear. Blood started oozing out again, and Lance pulled off a sheet of toilet paper to dab at it. Keith still hadn’t said anything, so Lance kicked him with his foot. “Hey. I’m talking to you.” 

“It won’t bruise,” Keith muttered, harsher than he needed to be. “I barely grazed you.” 

“Then I guess you better work on your aim.” Lance smiled and kicked him again, harder.

 _Oh, nice,_ he thought, when Keith’s face softened. _Oh, nice!_ He thought louder when Keith smiled a little and punched his arm with far less force than he had demonstrated five minutes ago. His teeth were straight and white. Lance got the feeling he never had braces. “Guess so.”

“You got me that time,” Lance said, rubbing his arm for dramatic effect. “But still nowhere near my face.” Lance had almost forgotten why he shook the shit out of Keith’s can when he saw the beads of liquid dripping from his hair. “Speaking of faces, you still have beer all over yours.”

“Oh,” Keith said. His smile dropped.

Lance handed him the towel and smiled harder as if it would rub off on him. Hm. Rubbing their faces together didn’t sound like a bad idea. “I’ll grab you another shirt.”

“What’s wrong with this one?” Keith asked. Lance wouldn’t bother to point out that he was a) majorly going to reek if he let the beer absorb into the fabric b) wearing a very worn out shirt in the first place. Between the collar and the sleeves, there were at least four small holes that Lance could see.

“Dude, you’re soaked.” Soaked was an overestimate, but Lance had the feeling if he backed down at all Keith would use any excuse to keep his shirt on.

He wiped his face on his arm. “I’m not- it’s fine,” he said.

“Oh, no no. First of all, use the towel. And wash your face, or you’re gonna be sticky.”

Keith glared but seemed to at least be weighing his options. Lance took the opportunity to grab his arm, holding him for just long enough to swab a face wipe over his nose and cheeks.

“Hey! Quit it!” He yanked his arm away and stumbled back a little bit, but Lance’s grip was firm and the bathroom was small. There was no escape.

“Just- one more second!” Forehead. Eyebrows. Chin. Jaw, because Keith was struggling and kept moving his head. Lips, because he could.

For his efforts, Keith went electric red from his neck to his ears. Lance thought it was a good reward, but he was all too willing to push his luck. “Much better!” he said, throwing the wipe in the general direction of the trash can. He didn’t let go of the other boy’s arm and started pulling him towards his room. “I’m pretty sure I have at least one black shirt you can borrow.”

Oh, shit, he forgot how messy his room was. Well, at least Keith seemed to have only a rudimentary grasp of hygiene. He could cut him some slack.

“Your room is disgusting,” he said.

So much for that.

“You’re disgusting.” Lance dropped his arm after Keith gave up fighting his well-planned, if ill-intentioned, hospitality and began rummaging through an open dresser drawer. The shirt he wanted to give him was so lame and wouldn’t suit Keith at all, but it would be funny. It wasn’t in the first drawer, so he pulled open a second and ripped through it as Keith paced around his room.

“You have a picture of Shiro on your nightstand?”

“Huh? Shirogane? Yeah man,” Lance said, peeking over his shoulder. “Best pilot of our generation and my personal hero. Didn’t you say you studied aerospace engineering and stuff? You should know about him.”

“Yeah,” Keith said. His tone sounded funny.

Lance watched Keith from the corner of his eye as he stepped over Lance’s maze of laundry and shoes and books that lingered by his desk, hovering by a cluster of family photos.

“Checkin’ out the familia?” Lance said, turning back to his search when Keith looked back at him.  “We got a pretty good gene pool.”

“Is this from when you messed up your face surfing?” Keith asked. Lance peered over his shoulder. Keith motioned to a picture of Lance with his siblings and cousins on the beach in front of a massive sand castle with some eclectic architecture. He was in a middle of a cluster of boys and girls on the left, with a black eye, a missing a tooth, and a far more even tan than he had now.

“Nah, that’s from when my sister hit a fastball at me.” Lance smiled. “Surprised you could pick me out of the lineup.” He dug around a little bit more and finally found the shirt. With a crack, he snapped out a few of the major wrinkles. It said ‘πmp’ - the mathematical symbol for pi, 3.14 whatever, and MP, in massive white letters. It was a regrettable purchase that he hated as much as he loved. “Hey, Keith-”

He was smirking. Some of his blush had come back. And, when Lance hadn’t been looking, he’d ripped his shirt off. “Yeah?”

Oh, wow. “Oh, wow.”

Keith laughed, and his muscles shifted. Wow, he was handsome. The light from his lava lamp reflected off the thin sheen of beer that had managed to reach through to his skin. Long lines of his neck molded into pronounced collar bones that followed all the way to the edge of his shoulders, ending in sharp points. He didn’t have a six-pack, but he was slender, taut, and well-formed, and, most importantly for Lance’s second brain, half naked. “What?” Keith’s smile got bigger and he put his hands on his hips.

“Uh.”

With a few steps, Keith closed the distance between them. His dark eyes looked even darker in the shadows of Lance’s room. Something about their angle was different than before. Whatever thread that kept him so wound up had apparently loosened a little. Keith looked perfectly relaxed, and unfortunately for Lance, he looked like he knew exactly what he was doing. With a weak tug, he pulled the shirt out of Lance’s hands. “Ha. Pimp, huh? You? Where’d you get this? Middle school?”

Middle school wasn’t even a store. Whatever part of Lance’s consciousness that was still operating came up with a weak joke about Hot Topic and Keith’s ensemble, but it didn’t make it out of his mouth.

Keith shoved his damp shirt into his back pocket and put on Lance’s shirt slower than he had reason to. Keith was close enough that the hem brushed Lance’s nose when he pulled it over his head. Keith smelled like beer and Old Spice, or maybe that was the room. “Thanks,” he said. His voice was low. Lance felt his breath on his face.

“Y-yeah. No problemo.”

Keith pushed past him roughly with his shoulder, headed back out to the living room, but Lance was faster and slammed the door to his room shut. He locked it.

“Wait,” Lance said. “Wait.”

“What-”

Lance shushed him. “Hunk can’t know about this, okay? He’s gonna kill me.”

He was so cute. His face was so cute, and his face was still pink. Keith’s cute face pouted again. “What?”

Dropping to his knees, Lance scrambled around on the floor and reached a long arm under his bed. “You can’t tell him. I promised I’d share, but I’ve been saving it. Actually, I was gonna give it to him for his birthday, if I didn’t drink it first.” He pulled out a shoebox, and carefully unwrapped a bottle from a few layers of newspaper. It was a dark, vicious amber that glinted as Lance stood up. He foraged two mostly clean glasses from his desk and poured a hearty double shot in both. “This shit is homemade. My Pipo learned the recipe from his pipo and I dunno how far back it goes. He says it’s not the same with Florida water, but once he got a house with a big enough garage they set up a rig to start making it and now it’s my uncle’s job to bring it any time more than six of us get together.” Lance sat on the bed next to the pizza box and held out a glass for Keith. “Once it’s open, you can’t turn it down. Them’s the rules.”

Keith looked from the glass to Lance and back to the glass, swiping it and taking a seat next to him. He took a deep whiff. “And this is?”

“Rum, stupid. Salud.” So much for sobering up. Lance linked his arm around Keith’s so that they could toss their shots back together. “It’s the only non-beer alcohol I have right now.”

Keith, sexy Keith, didn’t hesitate to take his (double) shot. And he licked his lips after. Hot. Lance quickly took his and tried not to cough. Fuck, it was strong. “Good?” Lance croaked.

“Yeah,” Keith said. “Another?”

Fuck. That was hot too. Special family recipe be damned. “Yeah,” Lance poured another generous shot- but only one- in each glass. Their arms were still linked. “Gotta stop after this though, or else I’ll really get in trouble.”

“Lightweight.”

“What, you’re not drunk?”

“No.”

Lance suspected he was lying but added another shot to his cup anyway. “Well, you will be.”

Keith took his double shot, threw the empty glass somewhere on Lance’s bed, and cracked open the pizza box.

Lance took his, suppressed a gag, and pulled the box back from Keith’s hand. He was already holding two slices. “Come on, if we’re not out in a few seconds, they’re gonna get suspicious.”

“I’m already wearing your shirt,” Keith mumbled between bites.

Pulling up Keith with one arm and holding the pizza box in the other, Lance managed to open his door and stumble out into the living room.

Pidge was still playing against CPUs. Hunk just looked tired. “You really had your family’s rum under your bed for months without telling me? And you just went ahead and gave it to him? Lance, I _am_ your family!”

Damn him. “Okay, okay, sue me. The rest is yours.” No hiding from Hunk’s nose. Lance threw the pizza box on Pidge. The gamer they were, they paused the game and caught the pizza with ease.

“Finally,” Pidge said. Hunk shot off to Lance’s room for the rum. Lance pulled Keith back to his original spot on the floor and plopped down next to him. Keith chewed on his second slice of pizza and leaned on the couch.

“I want a beer,” Keith muttered into Lance’s ear.

“Sure,” Lance said. “Can I have one, too?"

Shrugging, he played at considering the question. “Hm. Dunno. You said you were already in trouble. May as well keep going.”

Pidge, mid-chew, asked a very relevant question. “Keith, how many drinks have _you_ had?”

Keith smiled, but his eyes didn’t leave Lance.

“Fuck.” Pidge said.

* * *

 

He knew he was in bad shape when Pidge asked. He’d known he was in bad shape before Pidge asked, and then he had four shots of that special rum Lance didn’t give to everyone else. He was lucky that Lance was doing much worse, or he’d really be getting an earful. Lance’s words were coming out a little bit slurred, and his jokes came slower and were dramatically worse in quality. Keith, for his part, was generally just thinking a lot less. His only consolation was that Hunk had been lured into drinking more since that rum was introduced, though that didn’t make up for the fact that he and Lance were blasted.

“Thanks, Pidge, for the invite,” Keith said when Lance left to grab them beers.

“You’re blushing. Hard.” Pidge said.

“Asian flush,” Keith said, slapping at his face as if to remind them where his cheeks were. “Can’t you just say you’re welcome?”

“You’re welcome.”

Hunk cleared his throat. “You’re welcome for hosting.”

“Oh, yeah, thanks, Hunk,” Keith added quickly, tripping over his words a little. “This has been, uh, really fun.”

“No offense, but you kinda seemed like a weirdo when we met. And then you punched my best friend.”

His body must have been as drunk as his brain was because his stomach plummeted to somewhere near his knees. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry, I think you’re alright now. Even if you suck at Mario Kart.” Hunk took a sip of his rum. Straight. What a badass. Keith had almost died drinking it earlier.

As if on cue, Donkey Kong shot off a ledge and into the water below. Keith forgot he was playing. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Matt’s picking me up at eleven, by the way,” Pidge said. “Keith, can you walk home?”

“Man, no way he’s walking home,” Hunk said. “Look at him.”

Pidge did. Keith smiled, awkwardly. Pidge rolled their eyes. “I’ve seen him worse. Keith can handle himself. Plus, you already saw his huge knife.”

“Yeah.” Keith rubbed at one of his eyes. How was it almost midnight already? “Don’t worry.”

Lance came back with two beers and three water bottles, settling into the spot he’d claimed between Keith and the couch. He dropped the drinks on the ground in front of them and chugged one of the waters first. Keith laughed.

“What?” Lance said. “If I don’t start with the water now, I’m gonna be so hungover tomorrow.”

“Beer before liquor, never sicker,” Hunk said. Lance shot him a look.

“You’re drinking liquor after beer.”

“Yeah, I had two beers, and unlike some of us, I can pace myself.”

Lance snorted. It made Keith laugh a little. Again.

Pidge’s voice. “Keith, are you even playing this game?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Keith mumbled, not looking anywhere near their direction.

Lance drank another bottle of water and watched the other three play. “Hey, Pidge, you said you’re leaving at twelve?”

“Yeah,” they said, sending a red shell in Bowser’s direction.

“Hey!” Hunk yelled, swerving to avoid it.

“Then I’m playing in the next round. Have to kick your ass before you leave.”

“Uh-huh, we’ll see about that,” Pidge said.

Keith was clumsy with his fingers on the controller.  It vibrated whenever he died or got hit. He didn’t know what the buttons meant, and he didn’t bother to ask when it had been handed to him.

The round finished with Keith last, again.

Lance crossed his legs and grabbed his controller. Hunk and Pidge argued between themselves over the next course while Lance scanned the characters, finally settling on Luigi.

“Luigi? Seriously?”

“Hey man, you already took Donkey Kong from me. Don’t shit on my little green MVP.”

They played as blissfully as a group of friends could play a competitive video game until Matt started honking outside.

“Later, losers!” Pidge said, dropping their controller on the couch.

“We should all hang out next weekend!”

All eyes turned to Lance, who had made the suggestion.

“All of us?” Keith croaked. He was as suspicious as he was curious, and made no attempt to hide either emotion, not that he would have done a very good job had the idea occurred to him.

“I mean, yeah,” Lance rambled on and made eye contact with an incredulous Pidge, whose hand was already on the doorknob. They arched a brow, since Lance clearly wasn’t talking to them. “Yeah, you can come.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Hunk, please!” Lance yelled. “You know that’s my thing!”

Pidge snickered and Hunk went back to sipping his drink.

Failing to regain any composure, Lance continued. “Look, there’s a sci-fi movie every Saturday at eight at the drive-in for some summer thing. We can take my car and get some popcorn and have some good, clean, fun where Pidge doesn’t win everything.”

“I could probably win at movies, too, but I’m pretty sure I’m busy on Saturday,” said Pidge.

“Hunk?”

Hunk was busy texting and didn’t look up from his phone. His Nokia was absolutely dwarfed by his hands. “I’ll consider it _only_ if we stop somewhere before to load up on snacks. I’m pretty sure their popcorn butter is melted plastic and it did _not_ sit well with me last time.”

“Aw, c’mon, Pidge! You have to come if Hunk comes. Keith?” Lance’s voice raised at Keith’s name in desperation, or something like hope. Keith’s drunken flush darkened a shade.

“Pidge?” Keith asked, in a tone all too similarly desperate. He didn’t want to say yes outright, since he was only here because Pidge had so graciously brought him. Hunk was nice, but Lance was, well, Lance. He could see what being a third wheel on those two would look like a mile away. And he did want to go. Really wanted to go. Really wanted to sit in the back seat and watch Lance throw popcorn at the windshield and put his feet all over his cluttered dashboard.

“Fine,” Pidge said. “But my yes is very tentative.”

“Then I’ll go,” Keith said, sending his millionth appreciative look to Pidge.

Pidge sighed. “You’re welcome,” they said, opening the door. “Keith, don’t do anything stupid.”

“No promises,” Keith said, but Pidge had already left.

* * *

Hunk was the one to finally end the party.

“This has been fun and all,” he said as he stood, at least five of his vertebrae cracking in the process, “but my girlfriend is coming over, so Keith needs to get home.”

“Why?” Lance said. His head was resting back on the couch, tired but too stubborn to doze off. His knee was migrating towards Keith’s, but didn’t quite make contact yet. He was working on it. If Keith didn’t stop crossing his legs, it would be way easier. “You two aren’t ever, like, unreasonably loud.”

“She had three practices today and spent the rest of the night at the library, so not happening. I meant more that Keith needs to leave, period. It’s almost one thirty.”

“Oh, shit,” Keith said. He stood, too quickly, and inspected the area around his feet. “Yeah, sorry, I gotta-”

“Keith can sleep on the couch!” Lance said from his lazy sprawl on the floor. “Keith, just sleep on the couch. I can make you some awesome hangover eggs tomorrow morning. We can do face masks.” Hell, he already borrowed his shirt, right? He could borrow some sweatpants, too, and Lance could make eggs, and he’d put on Nickelodeon and they could watch cartoons in the blanket pile Keith slept in, which would be warm and perfect and Lance would probably want to do it over and over and over until he ran out of Saturdays.

Keith’s purple eyes widened. They glowed like the rest of him. Lance was staring, but hoped it wasn’t obvious. He looked, at first, surprised, but then there was something else. His jaw set and his attention was taken in by something behind the television screen. Every drop of fun, smiling, tipsy Keith drained away somewhere into his floor. “No way. I’m not going to sleep here.”

“Come on, it’s no big deal. We have blankets! And Hunk said he and Shay aren’t planning on  boning!”

Ok, whatever it was he was saying, he was making everything worse. Lance watched Keith’s distant expression curdle into something more sour by the second.

Hunk sighed. “Yeah, that would be fine. Keith, can you even get home if you wanted to?”

“Yeah, yes,” Keith said. Suddenly rushed, he ran back and forth from the living room and kitchen, picking up trash and bowls along the way, pointedly faster than Hunk, who sluggishly trailed behind with whatever was left.  “Yeah, I’m gonna leave. Thanks again, guys, I’ll, uh-”

With a great deal of luck, Lance managed to catch the fabric of those tight jeans Keith was using to torture him. “Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeith, buddy, just hang here, it’s no biggie.”

Keith walked on like he was invisible. Lance only let go when his body started to drag. Keith’s steps never slowed. “I’m going.”

Finally, Lance stood, and swallowing down Keith’s sudden attitude, all his previous rejections, his many-times-wounded pride, and some of his self-respect, slid in front of Keith before he reached the door. “Then lemme walk you home.”

“No,” Keith said. He reached for the doorknob.

Wow, harsh. Lance placed his hand over Keith’s white knuckles and black leather. One more time. He could ask one more time before it was weird. “Can I walk you home?”

Under his palm, he felt the slightest hesitation with the unclenching of the other boy’s hand. Lance watched Keith’s irises dart back behind him. Hunk had left the two of them alone.

He said a prayer, and laid it on thick. “Look, yeah, we’re both drunk, okay, but that’s the point of the buddy system, right? Two drunks are better than one, right? I don’t even have to walk you the whole way, just enough until I don’t feel like a bad host. I know you don’t need me or anything, I just want you to get back safe...”

He only stopped talking when Keith looked up at his cheek. To be totally honest, Lance had already forgotten about Keith punching him. “What? Am I still bleeding?”

“No,” Keith said. He sighed, and leaned his forehead into the door. The purple bags under his eyes looked heavier than Lance remembered. He closed his eyes and took a breath. “You sure you want to walk me home?”

“Yes!”

“You’ll be hopeless on your way back.”

Lance smiled. “Lemme grab my jacket.”

He ran back and snatched his favorite jacket off the floor, stopping only when he rounded the corner. Keith was waiting, arms crossed, head tilted down, foot tapping, wearing his shirt. Impatience looked good on him.

“You ready?”

Lance felt warm standing in his own living room, admiring Keith in full form in front of him. His messy hair, ungainly hunch, and silent sneer made Lance slow his approach. The longer it took for Lance to get closer, the more evasive Keith was with his eyes. Not so tough after all.

“Will you hurry up?”

Lance eventually slid past him, and pushed open the door. “After you.”

Their first steps outside together were slow and mangled. Light flooded from the front door, soft yellow illuminating the sidewalk and the street outside, bringing only the immediate into focus. A few street lamps cast low glows in the distance. The sky was the blue-black of past midnight.

Keith stopped and narrowed his eyes at the end of the walkway outside. Lance bumped into him immediately. He knew he was following too closely, shortening his stride and stumbling over his steps to hang a generous five inches away from Keith’s shoulder. “Oops.”

No taunts. No poorly concealed smile. Keith rubbed his elbow and stared out into the dark.

“Hey, Keith, buddy? Pal? Walking somewhere, remember?”

“Thanks.” Keith kept walking.

Cryptic. Weird. Lance caught up. “What?”

“Thanks,” Keith said again, a little louder and more emphatic.

“What’d I do?”

“You,” Keith said, “are so stupid.”

“What did I do?” A practiced, tan hand ran along the edge of Keith’s shoulder and came to rest at the base of his neck. The muscles shifted underneath his touch, instantly tensing. Keith looked away and jammed his hands into his pockets.

“Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeith…”

“This. Walking,” he said. “With me,” he added, for clarification. 

He looked and sounded angry, but he wasn’t. Lance smiled. “You’d do the same for me,” he said, his words only a little slurred.

“No! No, I wouldn’t!” Keith probably didn’t realize how loud he was yelling - directly into Lance’s eardrum, no less. He probably also didn’t realize how wild his face had become. His black pupils engulfed his dark irises. Like his eyes, his voice was mesmerizing and deep. If he had his hands to gesture, it would have been even better. The alcohol was working, at least on Lance. “I always do everything myself!”

Lance sighed and slumped onto his companion, rubbing his neck with a motion that was hopefully comforting. “Keith, Keith, Keith, calm down, take a chill pill, my man, I’m not interrogating you.” He yawned without covering his mouth.

Keith’s face was crumpling into something like… well, he couldn’t really put his finger on it.

It was hard to walk leaning on someone shorter than you. But he was tired, walking was more tiring, and Keith was warm. Lance let his hand drop from Keith’s neck to somewhat hovering over his chest area, absentmindedly bumping him every once in awhile. And, because he could, he curled closer, letting his torso rest against the other boy’s back. Their steps were much more like shuffling. Despite his grumpy exterior, Keith was being incredibly tolerant of Lance’s clingy, drunk behavior. Lance smiled and hummed in self-satisfaction, feeling the vibration spread from his chin through the fabric of his shirt and onto Keith’s skin. He felt the bob of Keith’s throat when he swallowed.

“Mmsleepy,” he murmured into the crook of the black shirt he had so graciously lent. He didn’t think when both pairs of feet stopped moving, or when he inhaled deeply in Keith’s hair. Lance didn’t know if the smell of Old Spice was his. His fingers brushed the skin of Keith’s arm. “Dude, it’s like, seventy degrees out, why do you have-”

“Quit touching me,” Keith barked. His voice was threatening, but he didn’t move.

Lance stepped back and rubbed an eye with the back of his hand. Keith was hunched, hands as deep in his pockets as they could go. “Why do you have goosebumps?”

“Who cares?” Keith tried to shrug, but moving his arms looked difficult.

Lance unzipped his jacket and tossed it over Keith’s shoulders. It warm from his body heat, and soft from years of wear. It used to be his brother Marco’s. The temperature wasn’t that bad outside, and he had long sleeves on.

Except as soon as it touched him, Keith’s face blanched again.

In a second, Lance saw Keith run through a million different scenarios through his head. None of them looked like they ended well.

Keith took his hands out of his pockets.

“Oh my god,” Lance whispered.

“It’s not what you think!”

But how could it be anything than what he thought, when Keith was pitching a tent right in front of him? How could it be anything else, with that tone of voice? With a face that red?

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you have a boner right now.”

“Shut up! This could happen to anyone!” Keith threw the jacket off his back and shoved it away. It hit Lance right in the gut, but it didn’t stop him from laughing.

Turning on his heel, Keith charged off. Lance followed, only a little unsteady on his feet. “Hold on, you can’t abandon me now!”

“Watch me,” Keith called behind him.

“I have an idea, just wait a sec!” He got close enough to grab Keith’s shoulder. As he should have guessed, Keith could dodge. Lance stumbled. “Hey!”

“Go home, Lance!”

And then he stopped walking. Lance stepped up next to him. “Hey.”

Keith was back to hiding his boner with his hands in his pockets, looking anywhere but at him. The nearest streetlight was a block away. Nobody could see them anyway. No passing car would notice Keith’s stiffy. But from a foot away, he could tell, though the outline in Keith’s pants was probably more of his hand than his dick.

“Dude, just tuck it in your waistband,” Lance said. He pulled up his shirt and snapped the elastic of his blue boxers. “It worked every time in math class. Then put the jacket on top, and bam. Richard? Never heard of him.”

“You got hard in math class?” Keith asked.

“I mean, math blows. I thought about jacking off during class instead. I know some kids actually did, but I was raised right, so I browsed my spank bank with no… uh, hand action.”

“Seriously? How old are you?”

The tone between them was relaxing again. Lance sighed. They were still close together. “Not anymore! Older than I should have been. But it was with my adult size dick, so I know it still works.”

“Thanks for clarifying you don’t have a baby dick.”

“At least I’m not the one hard in public right now.”

“At least I’m secure in my dick.”

“I am secure in my dick!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Want a measuring contest?”

Keith laughed and turned around. “I think they have microscopes in the bio lab you can borrow.”

“Fuck you!” Lance laughed. Keith laughed, and turned away from him.

_Keith._

Keith was turning around to adjust his dick in his pants.

Lance waited and watched his back and arms shift as Keith handled his hard cock.

_Oh my god._

Fuck, this was hot.

Keith hid his boner. He got goosebumps. He didn’t want Lance to touch him.

_Oh my god._

He turned back around. “Can you tell?”

Slowly, Lance’s eyes slid to Keith’s crotch. Yeah, he could tell. But it was dark outside, and his jeans were black, and with his black shirt over it, it looked okay. “There’s, uh. Some evidence.” Lance threw the jacket at him again. “Put it on. It’s kinda bulky. You’ll be good to go.”

Keith caught the jacket and looked down at his front. Keith’s embarrassment looked like it was already over. “Yeah?”

Shifting his form in the dark, Keith shrugged on the grey and green fabric. It was a little long on him. He looked good. His face was back to a low grade flush.. Keith was probably still drunk. He looked as warm as he felt earlier.

“You have to zip it up,” Lance said, after Keith waited around a good thirty seconds just standing there with the jacket on.

“Right.”

But Lance had already moved to do it himself. He grabbed the tab and pulled up. The zipper followed his lead, stopping just where the ends of the hood met. Keith’s chin was an inch away from his thumb. Lance wasn’t much taller than the other boy, but he enjoyed the view of Keith from above. His ears poked out under a mess of black hair. Dark bangs hung heavy over his dark brow and dark eyelashes and dark irises and white teeth and he wanted to kiss him.

Keith blinked up at him, slowly.

Lance’s hand hovered at the base of his exposed throat.

Keith leaned in.

Lance dropped to the ground and ripped off his shoes. “Actually, you were _so_ smart. Who is going to jump a guy with a boner, right?” He rolled his socks together into a ball and stuffed them into his pants, positioning the wad to protrude out as far as possible out from between his legs.

Keiths jaw fell open.

“How’s it look?” Lance stood up and grabbed his sock crotch. “Nobody’s gonna mess with me.”

“You-” His mouth closed and opened like a fish out of water.

“Hey,” Lance said. “Do you really wanna go on Saturday?”

“What?”

“The drive in? C’mon, man!”

“What? Uh, yeah, sure.” Keith rubbed the back of his neck. His palm was square and long and flat, like his fingers were. His wrist narrowed nicely before his forearm. Lance wanted to feel his hands again.

“Really?”

He needed to stop moving closer. His sock bulge hit Keith’s real one.

Keith’s breath caught. Lance filed the sound away for later revisiting. He was pretty sure his underwear was catching up to his socks.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Then why didn’t you text me, dude?” Lance's voice dropped to a whisper without him even noticing.

“I… didn’t have anything to say, I guess.”

“You can say anything to me.”

Keith looked down at Lances hoodie and fumbled with the strings. “Give me your phone,” he said, after an uncomfortably long silence.

Lance laughed. "Are you robbing me?" It sounded like he was nervous, and he was. Withdrawing his phone from his back pocket, he scrambled to put his it in the other boy’s hands without breaking eye contact.

"I haven't decided yet." Keith flipped open his phone. He pressed a few buttons and opened the internet.

Lance was sweating. “What are you doing?” 

“Uh,” Keith said, frowning at the screen, “how to I make a contact?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appreciate any kudos and likes!!! this is a saturated fandom so any feedback counts babes


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short one, mostly a bridge to the next chapter from the last. I'll be posting the next one soon, hopefully!

Lance landed face first onto the couch screaming, pulling the futon pillow around his head and ears, trying and failing to swallow his excitement. He rubbed his face in the corduroy material. It was gritty and smelled like ass. He felt warm and buzzed, even though he left his jacket with Keith.

_Keith._

His name alone made him scream into the pillow again. His heart convulsed remembering the way Keith smiled at him when he zipped his jacket up around his neck, how his eyelids drooped dreamily and Keith moved to kiss him.

He should have kissed him.

But he didn’t think Keith would be so…

So…

Whatever he was. A guy that talked tough and acted fast. And looked great doing it. It was really throwing off his game.

“Hey,” Lance yelled against the ribbed gray fabric.

No answer.

Well. The lights were still on, so someone was still home. Flopping his legs over an arm on the couch, he tried yelling without the pillow over his face. “HELLO?”

Shay, radiant, statuesque, and totally ripped, peeked Hunk’s door open. “Welcome home!”

Lance could cry just looking at her. Shay had honey-light brown eyes against dark-and-darker mottled skin that made him melt. More than once, he had told Hunk that their children would be too gorgeous for earth. Even though his mind was on Keith, he unwillingly dragged his gaze away from Shay and up to the ceiling only out of decency. It didn’t help that she was borrowing Hunk’s cutest pair of pajamas, which were yellow hibiscus patterned and too short on her legs. “Please bash my face in.”

“Why?” She said, more curious than cautious. All six foot four of her stepped out of the Hunk’s room and sidled up next to her boyfriend’s roommate on the couch. “Speaking of, how did you get that cut?”

Lance sighed and leaned into her shoulder.

Hunk finally ambled out of his room, rubbing his eyes. He was only wearing his boxers, which was normal for summer. “Lance, drink some water and go to bed.”

“Sleepover?” Lance suggested, looking up at Shay. Despite her many practices today, she looked more refreshed than anything.

Hunk rolled his eyes but joined his favorite people on the couch. He wrapped a tired arm behind Lance to rest on Shay’s shoulder. “You gonna tell her about Keith?” Hunk asked, tone indicating his detachment from the waking world.

“You didn’t tell her about Keith already?” Lance had expected for Hunk to have run through a laundry list of complaints about his behavior tonight.

“Who is Keith?”

Lance smiled and nuzzled into his friends. He was getting his sleepover. Feigning indifference, he shrugged. “Just this guy.”

“Hmmmmm?” Shay hummed a knowing tune and poked a finger into his side. “And what about him?”

Oh, where to begin.

“He works at Blockbuster and Lance is obsessed with him.” Hunk yawned.

“Hey hey hey, whoa, I’m not obsessed!” Lance said, pushing at his best friend a little with his elbow. “Interested, is all.”

“Hm. Very interested.” Hunk said.

Lance shrugged and failed to hide a spreading grin. “Maybe a little.”

Shay cooed. “How did you meet him?”

Lance smiled, snuggling into the couch and reaching around to give both of his friends a gentle embrace. “Well, it started with Pidge, but Hunk helped.”

Hunk rolled his eyes again, and fell asleep before Lance finished the story.

* * *

The ceiling fan ticked softly above, rocking with every rotation. Keith watched the circling without interest, absently blinking whenever his eyes got dry. He inhaled the scent of Lance and beer stuck all over his body.

_Lance._

Keith stormed the eight feet between his bed and his bathroom, stopping in front of the sink and running the water on cold, though tap water never got below room temperature this time of year. He splashed his face and wiped the water off on the sleeve of Lance’s jacket.

His mirror was mostly covered with toothpaste, spittle and dust. He smeared it around with his hand a bit, making it worse. His reflection in the smudged mirror was still a little flushed. Keith tried to give a charming smile to his reflection, but dropped it immediately. It looked bad. Lopsided and unconvincing. Keith stared at his damp features, then wiped his face in his arm again to dry the last few drops on his nose. He tried to smile again, and wondered if these were the faces he was really making when other people were looking at him. When Lance was looking at him.

Lance was funny. Funnier than Keith would ever admit. And it kept ruining the mood, whatever mood Keith was feeling between them. Maybe he should smile less. If he did, he would probably get to sucking Lance’s dick faster.

If Keith was horny, it was usually quick business. When he didn’t want to be alone for the experience, he’d find someone hot enough to look at for the ten minutes he needed to suck their dick, usually by the bar and pool hall across from the bowling alley in town. Keith never went further than oral, partly because he liked leaving them wanting more, partly because he never wanted to go to anybody’s house or bring anyone home.

He wasn’t that manageable, normal horny that cropped up most nights and weekends that could be resolved through mild imagination or a half-hour’s worth of cruising. It was Lance, specifically, that was making him horny. The type of horny that came from doing things that weren’t inherently sexy. Just by making him laugh, and lending him clothes, and getting him drunk, and showing up when he least expected. This wasn’t good.

Keith already knew where Lance lived, and Lance had already invited him to stay at his place. It sounded like Lance had planned for Keith to sleep on the couch, but there was no way for certain Keith would have stayed there all night, the rate they were going.

Lance would have known exactly where he lived if he hadn’t thrown up a few minutes before they took the fork down his dead-end street. They decided to split up after Lance puked since Keith was almost home. By then, Keith's boner had thankfully died, and it was Lance who looked ridiculous with his sock erection, neck bent over the side of an industrial trash can as he vomited out everything they drank earlier.

If he had made it a few more blocks, Keith absolutely would have invited him inside. Lance could have brushed his teeth when he got back.

“Fuck,” Keith breathed, staring into his grimy sink. “Fuck.”

He’d probably had a total of two crushes in his whole life so far. He usually handled those by ignoring them. One option was just never talking to Lance again, which was unrealistic given Pidge’s obsession with his place of work and their friendship. However this played out, he would probably see him again.

The other option was to keep doing what he was currently doing, which was hoping Lance was picking up the just-kiss-me already vibe he was trying to put down.

All he needed was a sign that Lance would be open to the idea. Lance walked him home, for one. He got an invite to the movies, but that was part of a group. He got to Lance’s house on an invite from Pidge. Lance gave him his number, but Keith never replied. Lance gave him a customized apology pizza and sat with him outside Blockbuster way too late for strangers. Lance was the one that started this whole thing between them.

But Keith was trying, too. Sort of. He took his shirt off in Lance’s room. But he was there to get a change of clothes. He’d opened up to Lance quicker than he ever remembered doing with anyone, but there was no way Lance could know that. He leaned in when Lance was zipping his own jacket on him, but that whole thing was a disaster.

Fuck, maybe he was the one that was bad at this.

Keith looked at his reflection and frowned.

He could text Shiro, but what would he say? He never asked for advice from Shiro about this stuff. It was too embarrassing of a subject.

Pidge would be far too pleased if he asked them about Lance. They were already smug.

Padding back to his bed, he flopped onto his back with a sigh, yanking his phone out of his pocket and flipping it open.

He scrolled down his few contacts to the letter L. The only L in his phone was Lance Mendez.

Keith sighed, and he rubbed his finger on the edge of his phone, letting the metal press a square image into his thumb. He flipped it closed again, rolling to his side. His eyelids were heavy, but he didn’t want to sleep yet. He closed his eyes anyway. A rush of warmth came over him, and he remembered he came back with an extra jacket.

His phone buzzed in his hand.

With his thumb, he flipped it open.

**Lance Mendez:**

 

**_U made it home??_ **

Keith closed his phone, then opened it again, and hastily wrote a message back before he let himself think about it too much.

**Keith Kogane:**

 

**_Ya, u?_ **

He waited a whole three seconds for a text back. He had to scroll down past a picture of the top of Lance’s head, two fingers in a peace sign, and a blurry Hunk to see the text.

**Lance Mendez:**

 

**_Haha ya im chillin back at the crib_ **

Keith couldn’t help but scoff. He looked ridiculous.

**Keith Kogane:**

 

 **_k night_ **  

A casual end to a short conversation. Keith really was getting tired. But Lance couldn’t shut up. Another message popped up almost immediately.

**Lance Mendez:**

 

**_Haha ya im ur knight in shining armor_ **

Keith stared at the message. It was so cheesy. He was probably only saying that because he walked him home. He was joking. He couldn’t be thinking about this too hard. He was drunk.

**Keith Kogane:**

 

**_I meant goodnight_ **

**Lance Mendez:**

 

**_Haha i kno_ **

Keith turned off his phone and threw it to the other side of the bed. He fell asleep with the lights and his shoes still on.

* * *

Keith shoved Lance’s jacket and shirt in his mailbox on the way to work the next morning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm in it for the comments, so I would love to hear what you guys think!


	5. Chapter 5

Two days later, after a day’s shift and downing some lactase pills, Keith pedaled over to Solarsystem Slices. The place had bright lights that looped around in the sky like a Hollywood movie theater, which made it easy to spot anywhere in town. The front of the building was covered in neon. Keith’s eyes strained as his attention bounced between the green and blue alien and rocket logo to the smattering of pink and yellow cartoon stars and planets. Even from the outside, the place was an inattentive child’s crayola colored fever dream. Keith was getting dizzy just looking at it. He locked his bike on a loopy tie-dye bench and walked inside.

His entrance made a buzz, but he could hardly hear it over the sound of screaming children. A birthday party of lined up by a door marked ‘Galras vs Alteans’; some exasperated parents sat at a long table not far from them, their expressions clashing with the balloons and half-eaten cake around them. The man around the children, wearing a tactical style vest to match the army of children around them, was giving animated instructions.

Keith walked to the food counter. Nobody was at the register. He drummed his fingers.

Some kid, probably not out of high school yet, wandered from the kitchen door to the front. “Hey, welcome to Solarsystem Slices, can I take your order?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, eyes wandering around. “Can I get a large Meat Lover’s and a Coke?”

“Yeah. What’s the name?”

Thank god. Someone who didn’t give a shit about the stupid names here. “Keith.”

“Ok. It’ll probably be ready in fifteen.”

“Fine,” Keith said. He grabbed his wallet and paid. He was starting to get hungry.

It wasn’t until he was standing, alone, in a kid’s alien-themed pizza arcade, that he started to wonder how desperate he probably looked. Well, nobody else knew why he was here. But it was pretty pathetic, he thought, sliding into a booth designed to look like the inside of a rocket, that he would stalk Lance at his job, when his job was driving around. He didn’t even know if he was working. Keith sighed and put his face on the table.

He killed the next fifteen minutes watching the birthday party emerge from the laser tag room, shed their vests and disperse, the birthday girl carrying one or two of her own gifts as her parents hauled the rest back to their car. Other parents arrived intermittently to pick up other partygoers. He blew bubbles into his Coke and stared blankly at the foot traffic moving around the place as more teens started showing up when the families left. High schoolers didn’t have much to do around here, and he would know. Solar’s opened up only a few years ago, and had quickly become a destination spot for kids with nothing else to do after 8 in the summer. Keith had only gone when Pidge dragged him into going. It wasn’t really his thing.

He wasn’t surprised Lance worked here.

“Order up,” said a voice from above, disrupting his puttering train of thought. Keith looked up at a smiling Hunk. “Thought it might be you.”

“Hey,” Keith said, sitting up and dropping his straw from between his teeth. Hunk blinked expectantly before setting down a pizza stand and the pizza on top. He almost forgot to say anything else, the food looked so good. The cheese was bubbling hot and dripping off the crust, sending small bursts of red sauce onto piles of steak, sausage, and ground meat. Keith’s mouth watered. “Thanks. Uh,” his brain tried to churn out something friendly, but his hands were already ripping the crust into sections. “How’s your night been?”

Hunk shrugged and dusted a floury hand off on his white half-apron. “The usual, pretty much. I only started my shift a few hours ago, though.”

“Uh-huh,” Keith said, chewing and midway through his first slice. He dropped it on his plate and grabbed a paper napkin with his pizza hand, crumpling it to get some of the oil off. It was burning the tips of his fingers.

“What about you?” Hunk looked him up and down. “Just got off the job?”

Keith remembered he was still wearing his Blockbuster uniform. He swallowed a lump of pizza and nodded, wiping his mouth on his arm. “Yeah.”

“Long day?”

“Slow.” Keith took another few bites.

Hunk waited for him to chew.

“This is good,” Keith said, after he finished the slice. He grabbed his Coke and sucked down a gulp.

“I didn’t make it, actually,” Hunk said. “I just wanted to say hi.”

“Oh. Thanks.” He was nice.

“You’re here by yourself?”

Keith grabbed his second slice. “Yeah.”

Hunk waited for another beat. “Okay, well, see ya.”

Keith suddenly had the feeling he fucked up. “Uh, yeah, I’ll see ya.”

And then he was left alone again, but now with a gigantic pizza. Keith ate, and ate, and ate, and waited. His field of vision wasn’t very big in the booth, but he could see the front door. On the fourth slice, he started eating at a normal pace. On the eighth, he ran out of Coke, went to the bathroom, then got a refill.

Keith sat back down and eyed the clock. He had been here for 45 minutes. He was getting impatient and full. He grabbed another slice of pizza and chewed absently at the front door.

He sat on the last four slices for a bit, but managed to finish them in another thirty minutes.

He got up and got another refill on Coke.

He finished the Coke in another five.

He went to the bathroom again. He took off his gloves to wash his hands, dried his hands on his pants, and put his gloves back on again.

Keith pushed open the door to the bathroom and walked up to the register again. “Hey.” It was the same kid as last time.

“Hey,” said the kid at the register.

Keith’s stomach churned. He wished he had more lactase pills. “Can I get a small Meat Lover’s?”

“Yeah. What’s the name on that?”

“Keith,” Keith said.

Keith paid and sat down.

Fifteen minutes later, Hunk came out with his second pizza.

“Hello again,” Hunk said, exchanging the empty pizza plate. “Hungry?”

“Yeah,” Keith said. Hunk’s large eyes were attentive, and he watched Keith took a slice under and bite into it.  “Starving,” he lied.

“I did make that one,” he said.

“Oh, thanks. It’s good.” It occured to Keith he only really ever said the same thing to Hunk. “So do you… like working here?”

Hunk smiled. He apparently appreciated smalltalk. “Yeah, actually. I think you figured out I like cooking. Plus, I’ve gotten my name on the scoreboard for some of the games before.” He pointed at a line of old-style upright arcade games. Keith recognized Pac Man.

“Cool.” Keith said.

“You don’t seem like much of a gamer.”

“I can do stuff like that,” Keith said. “No consoles.”

“Lance has the high score on Duck Hunt,” Hunk said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s also working tonight.”

Keith finished his Coke again. “Yeah?” Keith said, again. _Fuck yes_ , he thought.

“Yeah. I’m surprised you haven’t seen him. You’ve been here for like, two hours.”

“Huh.” Keith said. His stomach churned again. He forced himself to keep eating.

Hunk left again.

He stopped eating after the first slice, sat back, and waited.

* * *

Lance walked in with three pizza sleeves slung around his shoulder. The night had been slow, and long, and full of stingy customers. He sighed. Just a few more years of college and grad school and training then he could fly to space and ignore his financial responsibilities and never deal with Earth car insurance or his mom begging him not to turn into his lazy brother Marco again.

With no fanfare, he dropped the boxes on the front counter and snuck around to the kitchen. He didn’t even stop to say hi to his least favorite cashier, James, who was busy texting under the table. The door to the kitchen swung open wide. Hunk looked up and smiled like he’d been expecting him, which he should have, considering they’ve been on this shift together for months.

“What’s shakin’?” Lance said, though the humor didn’t quite reach his voice. He wrapped his arms around his friend in a loose hug from behind.

Hunk laughed and shook his head. He was gingerly kneading dough into a ball. His hands were big enough to manage handling a double batch of the stuff. It looked like he was playing with the world’s largest wad of silly putty.  “Y’know. The usual. What’s up?"

Lance groaned and placed his head on Hunk’s back. Hunk kept kneading, and the movement of his shoulder blades was helping Lance’s low grade sleep deprivation headache. The rhythm was slow and his muscles were firm. Lance relaxed into it and closed his eyes.

“That bad, huh?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I have some good news for you.”

“You packed up the pizzas for me?” Lance hated doing it himself. He always got burned.

“That’s not the news, but yes. Everything going out is at the front,” Hunk said. “You might want to wait for the next round before you leave. Let someone else take it. Did you see who was here?"

“Nope,” Lance said. “Did Seth finally show up?” Lance was tired of picking up his shifts. He didn’t even come in to work today.

“Not Seth. I think Coran fired him. Check table 32.”

“Which one is that?” He never bothered learning the table setup.

Hunk sighed. “Rocket booths.”

“Who is it?”

“See for yourself.”

Now that was vague. “Who?”

“You’ll see.”

Curiosity got the better of him. Lance let go of Hunk and scurried out the kitchen and into the lobby. He wandered around by the games, scanning the tables. There weren’t that many people here. It was getting late.

And then he spotted him, face down in the best-hidden booth. “Keith?”

Keith, apparently startled, nearly jumped out of his seat. Lance was pretty sure he had just been asleep. His hair was a mess, but that was normal. Flakes of crust were stuck to his cheek. He watched as Lance approached him with wide eyes. As he got closer, he saw that Keith was surrounded by piles of greasy napkins. He must eat like an animal. He had only finished half of his pizza. Another Meat Meteor. He clearly had a preference for it.

“Did you fall asleep?”

He clearly had some form of self-awareness, because he rubbed his face with a napkin. Too bad it was covered in grease. At least he was conscious. How did he have such nice skin when he treated his body like shit? “Yeah. I’ve been here awhile.” Keith cleared his throat. “How… How are you?”

“Fine,” Lance said, his suspicion only barely concealed. “I got the jacket and shirt you left in my mailbox.”

“Yeah.” Keith said. His eyes were darting everywhere. He seemed off. Lance tried to focus on him acting weird, if only not to attribute the weirdness to his cute and confusing personality. “I thought that was the best place for it.”

“I mean, I got it, so it’s fine,” Lance said. It was definitely weird of him to do that, but - “Next time just give my stuff to me when you run into me.”

Keith rubbed at the inside of his leather gloves.

“So…” Lance said, then stopped. Keith looked off. Like, really off. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes!” Keith snapped. There was a bite to his tone, like he anticipated the question and rushed to answer.  “I mean, yeah, I’m fine.”

Lance looked at him and mulled over the situation. Keith had been there long enough to fall asleep and make a huge mess. He was also by himself. “Where’s Pidge?”

“I don’t know.” Keith said, defensively. He looked like he was sweating

“Can I get in on this, actually?” Lance said, pointing to the pizza. “I’m starving.”

“Uh, yeah,” Keith said.

Lance took two slices off and slipped into the booth next to him. Keith was sitting in the middle, so Lance balanced on the end, but he spread his legs out far and managed to align his right leg with Keith’s left. “Thanks, man.” He started eating without another word. Keith looked like he was grateful for the moment of silence.

“Aren’t you on the clock?” Keith asked, after almost a minute.

Lance closed his eyes. He took in the whirring arcade noises, the smell of bacon, the thrum of his dull headache, and the warmth of Keith’s leg on his. He always felt like he was swimming in a pot of everything happening to him, but it was mostly okay right now. He pushed work to the back of his mind.  “I’m about to go on break.” Lance had just decided he was going on break.

He opened his eyes, and Keith was smiling a little. It gave him an idea.

“Wait here for a sec,” Lance said, standing and shoving both pieces of pizza in his mouth at once. They only made it halfway in. Keith watched, confused, but Lance just held up one finger and sped off to the back.

He of course went through the kitchen. Lance waved at Hunk as he made his way to Coran’s office. “Looks like you found Keith,” Hunk said, laughing at Lance’s faceful of pizza.

Lance took out the slices with one hand and opened Coran’s office with another.

“I’m going on break,” he called to Hunk. Coran was probably off somewhere else, as usual, since he wasn’t at his computer. Lance grabbed a bag from a corner and went back out to Keith.

Lance was still chewing on his pizza when he dropped the bag in front of Keith. “Did you already hit the arcade yet?” he asked, between bites.

“No,” Keith said.

“Then let’s hit it,” Lance said. “Employees get free tokens.”

* * *

The arcade had a few kids hanging around and hopping between games. Aside from the line of the stand-up arcade games, there was skee ball, basketball, air hockey, soccer, plus all the classics. It was a nostalgic dream.

Lance decided he shouldn’t start him off with anything too advanced. Keith seemed mostly allergic to fun. He led Keith to the storm stopper. “Do you know how to play one of these?”

“Uh, yeah.” Keith said. He was looking a little more relaxed. He crossed his arms.

“Alright. Best two out of three? Most tickets wins?”

Keith smirked. “You’re on.”

Too bad for Keith. He was about to get annihilated. “You’ll be ready for a rematch in a minute.” Lance dropped his huge bag of coins and put one in the slot. The machine came to life, beeping in electronic tones as lights circled. The goal of the game was to hit the button when the light was on the center bulb. Lance waited for it to go around a few times.

He was basically an expert at this game. Lance had been milking tickets from this thing for months. He smacked the button when the light hit the right bulb, and a trill of lights and sounds went off. Then three hundred of his winning tickets poured out the side of the machine. Casually, he picked them up and started folding them into a neat pile. Lance smirked up at Keith, who, to his surprise, kept a poker face as the game celebrated Lance’s victory. “That’s three hundred for me.”

“Uh huh.” Keith said, uncrossing his arms and stepping up to switch places. Lance put in a coin for him and the game restarted. His big beautiful eyes glared at the flashing lights, and his gaze followed around the loop.

He watched for fifteen seconds until Lance got impatient. “Hurry up. I have a bet to win.”

“Let me focus.” He said. He was serious. He didn’t move his eyes from the lights.

“Well if you would just-”

“Lance,” Keith said, cutting him off. “Give me a second.”

Lance crossed his arms and tapped his foot impatiently.

Keith slapped the button. Jackpot. Three hundred tickets.

Lance’s jaw dropped as Keith stepped back to trade spots. “Three hundred for me,” he said, smiling. The tickets printed and Keith ripped off the last of them from the machine, crushing them together in a pile on the ground.

“You-” Lance closed his mouth, but only for a second. “Tricked me!”

“No, I didn’t.” Something was happening. Keith was starting to act like he was having a good time. Like he was totally convinced that he was going to kick Lance’s ass at this stupid game. It was making Lance’s blood boil, even though just a minute ago he had invited him to play to cheer him up. Lance just didn’t expect he would be good at it. “Feeling lucky?”

“Shut up!” Lance said, shoving another coin in the machine. The lights lit up again and Lance waited only a beat before he hit the button. Jackpot. The tickets poured out again. “I don’t need luck,” he said.

“Sure you don’t.” Keith didn’t wait for Lance’s tickets to finish spitting out before he took a coin from the bag and restarted the game. Lance folded the tickets together and watched.

Keith was focusing again. His eyes narrowed and he wrinkled his nose. He leaned down and positioned his hand over the button. Hundreds of little lights danced around his fingers and the worn fabric of his leather gloves. His jaw clenched. Keith was staring with a ferocious, determined energy. If he bared his teeth to reveal fangs, Lance wouldn’t have been surprised.

Keith smacked his hand on the button.

Jackpot.

Keith lit up, straightening and smiling and unclenching his fist. He turned to Lance, and Lance remembered that he was also there, in the scene in front of him, with Keith. “Fuck,” Lance swore under his breath as the new wave of tickets spat out.

Lance put in his coin and waited. Keith leaned against the machine next to him.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself.” Lance said.

Keith shrugged. “I am pleased with myself.”

Lance hit the button.

One to the right of the jackpot. Two hundred tickets.

“SHHHHH-”

Lance’s hands shot to his face to restrain from cursing around the ten year olds milling around. Instead, he took off his hat and threw it to the ground and stomped on it.

“Nice going,” Keith said, laughing, putting a coin in for his last turn.

Fuming, Lance snatched his hat up and put it back on his head. “Yeah, well, there’s no way you’re going to get jackpot a third time.”

“Are you sure?” Keith was back in the zone, and more confident than before. He leaned down to look at the lights, putting his weight on the game. His stance was less tense, shifting his weight to one side comfortably instead of rooting himself to the ground. Keith caught him watching, and smirked. “You’re looking nervous.”

Lance snorted and ripped his tickets off the slot. “Just sizing up the competition.”

“You’re a little late for that,” Keith said. He went back to staring at the lights.

Well, of course, Lance had been sizing him up. It was never too late to check him out. After their late-night text exchange, he hadn’t heard anything else from him. He was going to soak up the moment while he had it. Watching Keith get cocky was reminding him why Hunk thought he was obsessed with him, even if he was greasy. His attitude was hard to warm up to, but when you did, it felt like a nuclear reactor. Lance was pretty sure he would melt on contact. The way Keith was leaning stuck out his hips and accentuated his long legs. That expression of his wasn’t helping either. Lance tightened his grip on his pile of tickets and gulped.

Keith hit the button.

Jackpot.

Lance screeched. “No way!”

Keith just smiled and moved around him, grabbing his gigantic mess of tickets. “Looks like I win. What should I do with all of these?”

Groaning, Lance showed him the ticket counter. They fed their tickets in for a voucher. Lance looked at the 800 on his receipt sadly.

“Hey,” Keith said, disrupting Lance’s train of thought. He stuck his 900 ticket receipt in Lance’s hand. “I don’t really want a prize anyway.”

“You earned it fair and square,” Lance said. “I’m just the world’s sorest loser.” He grabbed Keith’s hand and tried to stuff his receipt into his stupid gloves. “Get yourself a paddle ball or something.” Keith laughed and pushed him off.

“Wanna play another?” Lance asked.

“Yeah.” Keith skimmed the games. “Let’s do that one,” he said, pointing at the shooting game.

“Oh, I’m _so_ good at Duck Hunt, you wouldn’t believe,” Lance said, already heading over. “Keith, you’re really going to regret this.”

“Uh-huh,” Keith said, following behind.

* * *

Keith knew he made the right choice the second he suggested the shooting game. He’d never really bothered with them as a kid, since he could shoot cans off rocks with a bb gun in real life whenever he wanted. Lance seemed to care about this stuff and the way he lit up made however severe Keith’s loss would be totally worth it. Keith liked seeing him get worked up. But Keith had no plans to just hand him a victory either.

Lance picked up the blue gun in the middle of his rambling about the ass-beating he was going to hand over. Keith picked up the red gun and watched as Lance leveled the fake rifle and shot the screen to get past all the settings.

“Are you left handed?” Keith asked. He was surprised to see the rifle on his left side.

“I score better with my right hand, but I’m going to give you a handicap,” Lance said, shrugging. “You could say I’m ambidextrous.”

Keith didn’t know what ambidextrous meant, but he made a guess from context clues. He raised the plastic rifle to his shoulder. “Good with your hands?”

Lance laughed. “You could say that.” He put in the coin and the intro screen faded. Keith let Lance bump into him as he raised his plastic blue gun.

Two pixelated ducks popped up behind equally pixelated grass. Keith aimed, but it was too late. Less than a second before they appeared on screen, they were gone.

“Gotta be faster than that,” Lance said. Keith didn’t have to look at him to know that he was being mocked.

The next time the ducks popped out--five this time--Keith just tried to shoot everywhere, immediately. He got one.

“It’s all about timing,” Lance said. “And you have to reload.”

“What?” Keith said, watching Lance take out another seven ducks.

Lance moved his gun to his other arm, grabbed Keith’s gun, and straightened until it was vertical. The gun made a “chk-chk” sound.  “That should do it. When you run out of bullets, do that,” Lance said. He handed the gun back to Keith, without looking up, and switched his gun back to his left hand. Keith shot one while Lance moved. Two for him.

“Two for you,” Lance said. His score was approaching twenty.

“You may be a sore loser,” Keith said, “But you’re a pretty bad winner, too.” He continued his strategy of trying to shoot everywhere and then reloaded how Lance showed him. 

“Yeah, well, I’m usually my own competition.”

“What, nobody is lining up to listen to you brag?”

Lance laughed. “Not really.”

Despite the context, and the setting, and that Keith was obviously making fun of him, Keith heard the smallest creeping of something sad in Lance’s voice. He shot the pause button and looked over at him.

“What?” Lance asked as the screen changed.

“Give me some pointers.” Keith said, lowering his plastic weapon. “You’re crushing me.”

“Um.” Lance scanned him over. He was seriously thinking about the game, clearly. Maybe Keith was reading too much into his thoughts.  “Sure. Let me fix your stance.”

“My stance?” Keith asked. He didn’t actually expect a critique.

“Yeah.” Lance put his gun in the holster and stepped behind Keith, tugging him back by the elbows. “Put some space between yourself and the screen. Otherwise, you’ll end up focusing too much on one spot. When you step back you can see the whole screen better and you’ll pick up sudden movement when the ducks pop up.”

“Okay.” Keith said. “You have a real strategy.”

He was trying to compliment Lance, for once, but Lance was engrossed in actually helping him. “You’re holding the gun wrong, too. Hold it like you’re looking down a scope and shoot when the duck is even with the barrel. It’ll improve your accuracy. The shot is delayed so you want to line it up to hit the duck when it’s in front of you."

“Uh-huh.”

“Like this,” Lance said. He continued to take liberties with touching Keith. He slid Keith’s hand forward down the barrel with his own and wrapped a hand around Keith’s hand at the base of the gun. “Keep your finger almost pulling the trigger.” Small puffs of Lance’s warm breath hit the back of Keith’s neck. 

“Mm-hmm.” Keith said. He let himself relax his shoulders enough to barely brush the top of Lance’s chest.

“Wanna give it a try? I’ll help you, all you have to do is pull the trigger.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, unthinking.

Lance aimed Keith’s gun at the unpause button for almost too long before Keith got the hint and returned to the game. It was easy when Lance guided his arms around. He didn’t have to do much. Keith let Lance kill the next few ducks, Lance applying easy pressure over his finger.

“Are you even playing?” Lance said. 

“Not really,” he said, deciding to be honest. “Either way, you won.”

“What? Looking for something more competitive?”

“Maybe.”

The first level was over, but Lance shot out of the screen to exit. LANCER and LANCEL were the top two scores. Keith smiled, and took a second to realize Lance had already put away the gun and was slipping his fingers Keith’s own. “Let’s go to the maze.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. this was gonna be a huge chapter but I decided to break it up again.
> 
> I didn't even plan to include any of this originally, but who doesn't want cute boys doing cute things?? I love some good quality time
> 
> pls comment if you love me and care abt me writing


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